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THE 



INQUISITION EXAMINED, 

BY AN 

IMPARTIAL RE¥IEWSR. 

*< Meligionis non est religionem cogereJ* 
NEW-YORK* 

PRINTED BY J. BESNOUES, 23 PROVOST-STREET. 
1825. 




SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW-YORK, ss. 

BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the twentieth day of June, in the forty- 
ninth year of the Independence of the United States of America, Thomas O'Connor, 
of the said distrir*. hath deposited in this office the title of a book, the right where- 
of he claims as proprietor, in the words following, to wit: 

The Inquisition Examined, by an Impartial Reviewer. " Re- 
ligionis non est religionem cogere." 

In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States of America, enlitled 
K An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts and 
books to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned.' 5 
And also to an act, entitled, * An act, supplementary to an act, entitled, An act for the 
encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts and books to the au- 
thors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending 
the benefits thereof to the ai ls of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other 
prink." 

JAMES DILL, 
Clerk of the Southern District of New- York. 



THE INQUISITION, &C. 



The subject of the following pages has engaged 
much of public attention : the mode of treating it, in 
this little volume, may appear novel ; it will be read 
on that account, if on no other. It is peculiarly 
proper, that such a work as this r should appear in the 
United States of America, because, here, and perhaps 
here only, the writer, shielded by wise and just laws, 
may proceed unobstructed by any authorized censor- 
ship of the press, or any privileged assaults of the 
prejudiced. The government of the United States 
is not chargeable, directly or indirectly, with the 
erection of any civil tribunal, to judge or control the 
consciences of men : if America continue free, she 
must resist the introduction of those falsehoods which 
have become part of an European management, 
having for its object, the enabling of the few to rule 
licentiously over the many. With the view of acting 
my part, on this occasion, I sit down to arrange the 
following matter ; 1 stand, herein, not the special ad- 
vocate of any particular religious sect, I write in 
charity, the professed tenet of all, and shall carefully 
avoid theological controversy. Confining myself to 
the inculcation of what equally interests every chris- 
tian, I hope to carry my reader along in good humour, 
and in the conviction, that I have no insidious or im- 
proper motive. 

The press may be compared to a sword : it can 
attack, it can defend ; it can kill, it can save. It 
must be confessed, that while its freedom is, in a 
great measure, essential to human happiness, its li- 
centiousness is impregnated with most grievous evil ; 
its intrinsic capability, however, to effect good, greatly 



4 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



overbalances the 'ill it can produce, even although 
the strong arm of the civil magistrate should not be- 
come umpire between the aggrieved and the aggres- 
sor. We foster the press as the " palladium of our 
liberty"; it behoores every citizen,, as he would se- 
cure to himself and his country, the advantages it of- 
fers, to use it as the best guard against the assaults 
which have, and may again be made, through it, on 
the credulity of those who can be deceived, and on 
the patriotism of those who may not have the lynx- 
eyes to discover the masked battery, whence may 
proceed a treacherous and dangerous explosion. The 
press by its power and subtility, is too often the effi- 
cient agent in the propogation of error ; it needs but 
to bend to its unexamined dictation, and blinded man 
may be led into any labyrinth however intricate, and 
held bound to any theory however absurd. It is 
the present purpose, to encounter one of the misre- 
presentations, to fight the enemy with the weapon he 
has misused, to seek an antidote in the source of the 
poison. 

The press with its attack on the Inquisition, has 
coupled an attack upon divine religion, it has arraign- 
ed God and man at the same tribunal, and. of its own 
authority, pronounced them associates in crime. To 
oppose the presumption of those who would build up 
deism on the ruins of revealed religion, is a work 
worthy of an abler pen than that now employed, 
and to such it would be willingly resigned, but there 
seems little disposition among writers, to enter on a 
task, in which they must encounter an error which 
has obtained too general credence, and be possibly 
exposed to the resentment of those, who, without re- 
flection or due information, hate the Inquisition, be- 
cause it is popish ; and hate a papist* because they 



* As I do on this, and may on other occasions, use the word 
papist^ in the sense familiar to writers, I think it necessary to 
observe, that, however I may comply with custom, I am aware 
that there is a distinction strictly speaking, between a papist-, 



INQUISITION EXAMINED, 



5 



hate the Inquisition. For my part, I expect more 
liberality in the reader, and that however he may con- 
tinue to differ from me, he yet will see in my motive 
an excuse for what he may deem my misconception. 

There are many writers on this subject, but they 
have so mingled it with other matters as to render 
the whole too voluminous for general perusal, or they 
were the productions of Catholic Ecclesiastics, and, 
for this reason, would not be generally read. I al- 
lude to publications fraught with candour, and not to 
those mischievous productions intended to poison 
the public morals, by instilling a hatred for religion. 
As the present work comes not from an ecclesiastic, 
as it is intended not to defend, or offend any christian 
sect, or yet to compare religions, it may be expected, 
it will meet a more favourable reception, an unpreju- 
diced perusal, and that the world will be on the side 
of the writer, who professes to defend the broad and 
charitable truth, that revealed religion is not a 
sanguinary code ; and that the blood which flowed, 
whether in its name or not, whether in Spain, or in 
England, had not, in either country, the sanction of 
the Catholic or of the Protestant churches, but was, 
in fact and in truth, opposed by the tenets of both. 

Inquisition, in the strict signification of the word, 
means neither more nor less than an inquiry, and, in 
this sense, is a harmless expression. By divesting the 



and a Roman Catholic. The latter is so called because he pro- 
fesses the religion of the Roman Pontiff, which religion was al- 
ways called Catholic, and because he acknowledges the supre- 
macy of the Pope in spirituals ; the former is a subject of the 
Pope as a temporal prince, and would be a papist, although he 
professed the Protestant religion, by the same rule that a subject 
cf George the Fourth is not less a Briton because he is a Roman 
Catholic, or, if the reader will please so to call him, a Papist. 
The publication of this distinction, by a Catholic of Ireland, 
several years ag-o, led to the practice in all late British laws, 
of introducing- the words " or Roman Catholic," after the words 
" popish" or 16 papist" as the same occurred in any bill on the 
subject of p opery. 



6 



INQUISITION EXAMINED 



mind of any prejudice that may exist against tire 
mere word, one obstruction to the good understan- 
ding of the subject will be removed, and the reader 
will be prepared to meet it, with the calmness essential 
to a candid examination. Johnson, in his dictionary 
explains theword inquisition to be "a judicial inquiry^' 
in this sense, it is a part of the civil code of every well 
regulated society ; and we will also find that there is, 
an inquisition properly and essentially connected with 
every religious community. There are inquisitions 
or judicial inquiries in Spain, Italy, France, England, 
in the United States of America, in every country 
where legislation is properly organized, or law right- 
ly administered. An inquiry into transgressions a- 
gainst the established laws and usages of nations, is- 
the proper duty of the civil magistrate ; the au- 
thorized administrators of the affairs of the churchy 
may also, in their respective communities, inquire in- 
to transgressions against their laws ; and each may 
inflict punishment in proportion to the magnitude of 
the offence, and the proper power of the court or 
judge ; but as the civil authorities exercise power in 
regard to the punishment of criminals (whether right 
or wrong is no question here) which cannot be resort- 
ed to by the ecclesiastical courts, so it becomes ne- 
cessary for every person who reflects at all on the 
subject, to consider the acts of these tribunals as un- 
co meet ed with each other. The appointments of 
clenrv, Catholic as well as Protestant, in Spain as well 
as in England, to be counsellors of princes and kings, 
in the civil administration of the realm, have led in- 
dividuals to charge to the agency of the clergy, and 
often rightly, those excesses which were committed 
a::ainst the people ; and, not discriminating between 
the individuals who composed the body of the clergy, 
and the church of which they were upon earth the 
ministers, but forgetting that while the former being 
human, might be corrupt and cruel, the latter is and 
must always and forever continue pure, mild, and 



INQUISITION EXAMINE!*. 



merciful, have charged to a divine religion, those / 
barbarous acts of civil governments, in which min- * 
isters of the church, acting in the capacity of civil 
magistrates, have been known to perform a part- 
The reader must be already astonished at the igno- 
rance or infatuation which could thus jumble together, 
as if into chaos, the acts of weak man, with those of 
an all-wise God. If the reader should see, as he 
must, the necessity of the distinction I aim at, another 
essential step is gained towards a good understand- 
ing of the subject. 

On generally received principles, there can be no 
reasonable objection to a judicial inquiry : it is not 
always so with the detail. The acts imputed as 
crimes, may be such as ou^ht not be cognizable by a 
civii tribunal, the punishment may be such as could 
not be inflicted by an ecclesiastical court, the mode 
of investigating the charge may be wrong, the penalty 
may be excessive. Instances of some, or of ail of 
these, may be found in every country ; while in the 
purest administered civil government, we find some- 
what to condemn, we will discover in the worst some 
excellence worthy of being adopted by the best. 

Among the crimes cognizable by the Spanish In- 
quisition, were those of magic, sorcery, soothsay ing/ 
blasphemy, polygamy, sodomy,! disturbing the reli- 
gious congregations when in church or engaged in the 
performance of divine worship, insulting the clergy r 
and not observing the Sabbath. These are also con- 
sidered and treated as crimes in every country where 
law has a due respect for order, peace, morality 
or religion ; and in no country are these violations 
of decency, these offences against the rights of socie- 
ty and individuals, more expressly discountenanced 
than in, these United States, and although the mild- 
ness of the law provides punishments less severe than 
those of despotic governments, yet, even here, the 
inconvenience arising from the enforcement of the law 



*Coustos. fDellon. 



8 



INQUISITION EXAMINED 



has been frequently the subject of complaint, while 
the efforts to evade it have supplied the material for 
many an amusing anecdote. These and other crimes 
cognizable by Spanish tribunals, were undoubtedly 
visited by punishments barbarously excessive, and the 
delays of trials, as well as the modes in use to extort 
evidence and confession, such as good governments 
could not but discountenance, and the law of the church 
must condemn. The Spanish Inquisition no longer 
exists. The reader will bear in mind, as a necessary 
preparative to the perusal of wbat follows, that a 
Catholic prince and a Catholic army, composed the 
power before which the Inquisition fell; to the aver- 
sion of the Spanish Catholics, and still more to the 
interference of another Catholic prince (if w r e believe 
a rumour not officially authentic, and not at all de- 
nied) we are indebted for the failure of the pusilla- 
nimous Ferdinand of Spain, in his attempt to reinstate 
the hated tribunal. 

The outcry m so industriously raised in England a- 
gainst the Catholic religion, has had a very injurious 
effect on the morals of the English people, an effect 
from which they will not soon or easily recover. This 
factious outcry engendered a hatred not only of fo- 
reigners, with whom Englishmen were generally un- 
acquainted, but also between Englishman and En- 
glishman, it became a part of a vicious and early edu- 
cation of the children, and may be said to have been 
sucked in with the mother's milk, it "grew with their 
growth, and strengthened with their strength," untii 
it became the settled tenet of the full grown man, 
w r ho thus became the slave of error, so gross, so pal- 
pable, and so opposed to the mild doctrine of Chris- 
tianity, that future generations will not need an aban- 
donment of the religion of their fathers, in order to 
conceive a surprize, that their Protestant ancestors 
could be so imposed upon. 

Let it not be supposed that I write against English- 
men : I know nothing bad in the natural character of 
the Englishman : misled by the artful and the vicious 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



9 



of his own nation, he is an object of compassion and 
sympathy ; naturally tolerant and brave, he is inge- 
nious, industrious, and patiently persevering in what 
he deems right : had the national spirit not been 
doomed to pine beneath evil direction, we should say 
misdirection, of a profligate government, the names 
of Wilberforce, Burdett, and Brougham, these hono- 
rable advocates of rational liberty, would scarcely be 
distinguished among the millions of Englishmen, who 
would rise up advocates of universal emancipation. 
The Englishman is told that he lives in an enlighten- 
ed age, and that he professes a religion of toleration 
and liberality ; but he should know, and he must 
know if he at all reflects, that those who inculcate 
hatred of the neighbour, are neither sincere christians 
nor orthodox Protestants ; the} are the same proud 
few who endeavour to keep the English mind dark? 
in the presence of that growth of literature and of ra- 
tional liberty which God intends as a blessing to alU 
The spurious charge made against the Catholic re- 
ligion, that the Inquisition grew out of one of its fun* 
damental tenets, was the foundation on which were 
erected many other misrepresentations, and was well 
calculated to effectuate the designs of the fabricators ; 
for, surely, a religion at once cruel and sanguinary, 
must be hated, and its votaries detested. Should the 
injustice of this charge be established, should this ill 
built foundation of error be once razed, and it is the 
writer's aim to raze it, the multiform superstructure 
must fall, or be supported by a miracle, and it may 
be doubted, notwithstanding the presumed credulity 
of Englishmen, whether such an imposition could be 
successfully played off in that nation, at this day. 
The world becomes happily more enlightened ; the 
force of increased knowledge must surely put an end 
to this war against religion, and direct it against those 
civil governments which commit all the crime, so un- 
justly alledged against God's code. It is especially 
desirable, that a just sentiment should govern the 
mind in America, and that the citizens 3 while shaking 



10 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



off the weak or wicked habits, and corrupt or erro- 
neous principles of the old world, should not retain for 
a mdment the most unsocial and uncharitable of all. 

The early settlers of that part of America north of 
Florida, came principally from England, they brought 
with them their prejudices, they instilled these into 
their children, and they into theirs, until a people 
destined, they or their posterity, to be the admiration 
of the world, became prejudiced, intolerant, and 
blindly bigotted, not only disposed to persecute Catho- 
lics, but to persecute each other. Many indeed are the 
proud instances in which the errors of early educa- 
tion gave way before the better understanding of phi- 
losophical inquiry and the instructions of unsophis- 
ticated piety, but persecution in every shape, direct 
or indirect, statutary or otherwise, must entirely 
cease, before republicanism can become the safeguard 
of the conscience, the mind must be as free from the 
desire as the hand from the act of oppression ; and 
this cannot be expected, unless the heart be disposed 
to charity and the investigation of truth. Kings re- 
vile religion in order to gain their kingly ends ; the 
course of republicanism is not devious, liberty of con- 
science is its conspicuous character, hatred of the 
neighbour on account of his particular religious tenet, 
is inconsistent with that character. We may argue, 
we may reason, but we can neither persecute those 
who differ from us, nor compel them to adopt our 
opinions or creed. If Americans have not fully and 
generally adopted this doctrine, to it they must at 
some time come, and the sooner the better. 

The British kings and queens did little to encour- 
age settlements in America, except by grants of land 
to private companies or individuals. The titles to 
these lands were, at that early day, not very well secu- 
red against foreign claims, and finally became trouble- 
some, vexatious, and unprofitable to the grantees. 
The hostility of the aborigines, an inhospitable cli- 
mate, and various other impediments, presented the 
most discouraging aspect, and frequently produced 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



11 



the most disastrous disappointments. The project of 
settling the country north of Florida would have been 
abandoned, or deferred to a distant day, had pecu- 
niary gain or domestic comfort been the only incite- 
ments : what nature seemed to deny, human artifice 
or rather human cruelty supplied. Through a mis- 
taken or a pretended love of God, the men of Europe 
persecuted each other, until the worsted party was 
compelled to seek refuge in the uncultivated wilds of 
America. To persecution on account of religion 
more than to any other cause, may be ascribed, that 
the American country north of Florida contains a 
population of twelve millions of persons natives of 
Europe, or descendants of European parents. Can 
it be believed, future generations will totally discredit 
the fact, that the persecuted who fled from Europe 
to the wretched asylum offered by America, became 
the persecutors of each other. If we except the 
quakers of Pennsylvania, and the Catholics of Mary- 
land, the spirit of fanaticism and of persecution for 
conscience sake, was too apparent throughout. This 
however was less prevalent in the southern than in 
the northern portion of this country. The tract to 
which the name of " New-England'' was given by 
one of the early explorers of America, comprehend- 
ing the country north-east of the Dutch colony of 
New- York, and bounded by the river St. Lawrence 
on the north, was the -most remarkable for the zeal 
with which its inhabitants carried on the work of 
holy persecution. 

The reformation in religion which commenced in 
Germany, in the sixteenth century, was introduced 
into England during the infant reign of Edward the 
Sixth, and partially in the preceding reign of Hen- 
ry the Eighth. This reformation denied the supre- 
macy of the Pope, not only in temporal, but also in 
spiritual concerns. This taking of the religious con- 
cerns of the Christian world out of the hands of one 
supreme government upon earth, where it had so 
long remained, led very naturally to an inquiry into 



12 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



whose hands it should pass ; it led also to a question 
which must long or forever remain matter of dispute, 
whether it were most for the glory of God, and the 
spiritual comfort of man, that the church should ac- 
knowedge one supreme head upon earth, or that each 
individual, presuming on the infallibility of his own 
private judgment, should act under its uncontrouled 
guidance. It would be inconsistent with the object 
now in view, to enter into the merits of this contro- 
versy, but it is quite in order to state the result so 
far at least as the occasion requires. 

Henry the Eighth of England quarrelled with the 
Pope, because the latter refused to divorce him 
from his wife, in order that his majesty might take to 
himself another. After some ineffectual efforts to 
obtain the Pope's consent, Henry assumed the gov- 
ernment of the Catholic church in England, denied 
the supremacy of the Pope, and made some other con- 
venient alterations. This affair happened some nine 
or ten years after the commencement of the Lutheran 
reformation, and led the way for its introduction into 
England, for although Henry seemed as much dispo- 
sed to deny the supremacy of Martin Luther as that of 
Pope Clement VII, yet he commenced, the innovation 
in England, although he adhered to the last to 
most of the Catholic tenets; it is true Henry, neith- 
er Papist nor Lutheran, did not introduce the re- 
formation, yet he opened a door through which it 
passed, and to it, whether good or bad, many 
an English subject yielded in the reign of Hen- 
ry. During the short reign of his successor, the 
reformation was introduced by authority of the 
young king and his advisers, but the British sub- 
jects, to very many of whom change of religion seem- 
ed not very disagreeable, yet seemed disposed to ex- 
ercise their private judgment, the king set the exam- 
ple of disobedience, and whether that was right or 
wrong, the people would be disobedient also ; their 
private judgment which released them from obe- 
dience to the Pope of Rome, would also release them 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



13 



irom obedience to the pope of England. Discontent, 
disunion, and spiritual opposition grew in magnitude, 
until they had nearly broken into treasonable rebel- 
lion. The zealots who regulated the British church 
under the reforming princes, retained many of the 
forms and ceremonies of rejected popery. This gave 
offence, and hence arose the proposed reformations 
of the reformation, until religion threatened to assume 
so many shapes, that true Protestanism might possi- 
bly be lost sight of, or totally extinguished by the 
proseylitism of its members. Opposition to the estab- 
Jished reformed church grew, if possible, more vio- 
lent than it had been to popery, every extravagance 
which had been charged upon the Catholics, was now 
charged upon the Protestants. The most formidable 
of the opponents of the new religion from the great 
simplicity of their doctrine and the almost total re- 
jection of ceremonies, obtained the title of u Puri- 
tans/ 5 a name well understood at this day in New- 
England. The story of Pope Joan which had been 
rejected even by the enemies of Catholicity, ou ac- 
count of its extreme improbability, was now brought 
up anew by the enemies of Protestanism, who saw it, 
as they said, scandalously exemplified, in the instance 
of Pope Elizabeth. In this way did the Puritans, and 
those still more pure than the Puritans, rail at, and 
dispute the orthodoxy of the established church, un- 
til th,e civil government which had incorporated it- 
self with the established hierarchy, began seriously to 
apprehend that all order might be overthrown by 
what was then called the growing fanaticism. 

It was now resolved to establish by compulsion, 
what it was too plain could not be established by per- 
suasion, and to substitute the sword, if necessary, for 
the bible. In other words, all who would not bow to 
the new doctrine as expounded by archbishop Cran- 
mer, were to be persecuted, whether the recusants 
adhered to the " abominations of popery," or to the 
no less abominable tenets of puritanism, whether they 
adhered to the old church with its head, or to the new 

<2 



14 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



one without a head. A full history of these affairs, 
as impossible, as the collection would now be useless, 
will not be here attempted. One case out of the ma- 
ny will be noted, because America is directly con- 
cerned in it. It grew out of the British dissentions, 
and introduced an inquisitorial persecution into New- 
England. 

It was in a great degree to intimidate and check 
the Puritan preachers, that queen Elizabeth of Eng- 
land, seeing the inefficacy of all other means, caused 
to be erected that unconstitutional tribunal, called 
" the high commission for ecclesiastical affairs," the 
proceedings of which were so offensive, that even her 
steadiest adherents did not fail to inveigh against it, 
while the Protestant writers unreservedly bestowed 
on it, the title of Inquisition, describing it as " worse 
than Spanish." The extreme pliancy of the parlia- 
ment to the dictates and wishes of this she-pope, this 
" over-ruler of the church" as she called herself, left 
no hope of peace to the Puritans. 

Among the most successful of the Puritans, was a 
man named Robert Brown, a republican in principle. 
Bold in his attack on the established church, and pos- 
sessing a very insinuating address, he collected fol- 
lowers with great rapidity, and had he persevered 
might possibly have shaken the mighty fabric of Pro- 
testanism: while others of his party were persecuted, 
the popularity of Brown seemed to protect him 
against the advocates of the high church. The govern- 
ment, before it would resort to the desperate expe- 
dient of a personal attack, had resort to an experi- 
ment on his virtue; Brown was not proof against a 
bribe, he was offered, and he accepted a comfortable 
benefice, and became a staunch Protestant. His fol- 
lowers had already taken the title of Brczmists, and 
by this name they continued to be known notwith- 
standing the defection of their leader. 

The Brownists or a considerable number of them 
fled to Holland, under the guidance of John Robin- 
sen their newly elected chief, after a peaceable resi- 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



15 



dence of some years near Leyden, they once more 
thought of migration. The cause which influenced 
them to this new step is variously related. Some will 
have it that a continued reduction in their number 
occasioned by death and by proselytism, threatened 
the extinction of their sect, and that the chief zealots 
resolved on the only mode which could in their opin- 
ion defer or prevent the apprehended evil. Other 
accounts quite as probable as that just adverted to. 
would have it, that, continuing firm in their religious 
and political principles, and being suspected of hold- 
ing a correspondence with their friends in England, 
British jealous}^ was aroused. The Dutch government 
influenced, as was rumoured, by the head of the 
British church, rendered the situation of the Puritans 
so unpleasant, that they sought safety in the wilder- 
ness of the new world. Whatever the motive or cause* 
the greater part of the Puritans who had settled in 
Holland, together with many of those who remained 
until now in England, embarked for America, in the 
year 1620, and after a passage of more than two 
months, reached Cape Cod. Every circumstance 
connected with their new situation, was calculated to 
promote peace and unity so necessary to mutual sup- 
port in the midst of imminent peril and great difficul- 
ties ; and it might reasonably be expected, that a so- 
ciety which had suffered so much persecution, and 
had undergone so much to secure to themselves a 
freedom of conscience, would be prompt to recognize 
this right, as, inherent in others, but, strange to relate, 
they were scarcely arrived, and but imperfectly es- 
tablished in their new settlements, when they began 
to dispute on speculative points of doctrine, and in- 
stead of allowing each individual, as seemed to be a 
part of their doctrine while in Europe, to exercise 
his own judgment, one party insisted on a general 
compliance with its own view, and this being the 
stronger, the weaker was compelled to submit to a 
sentence of expulsion. A minister of the name of 
Williams unwilling to submit to rules prescribed by 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



others, and conscientiously believing himself rnors- 
pure than most of his Puritan brethren, placed him- 
self at the head of the exiled. After traversing the 
wilderness for some time, they fixed on a new home, 
to which they gave the appropriate name of Provi- 
dence. Thus was Rhode Island first settled by Eu- 
ropeans. Mr. Hooker another preacher being com- 
pelled to retire, was accompanied by those who es- 
poused his particular tenets, to the Connecticut Riv- 
er, contiguous to which they made a settlement. A 
sect still purer than any yet mentioned, owed its orig- 
in to a female preacher named Hutchinson : they 
were expelled, and found a home on the Piscataqua 
river, now part of the State of New-Hampshire. 

These persecutions, be it remembered, were of Eu- 
ropean origin, it would be a grievous error in repub- 
lican America to foster the ugly germe, which in its 
growth might endanger or destroy the noble fabric 
reared by a more enlightened policy. Religious an- 
tipathy is of all disorders the most dangerous to en- 
tertain, the most difficult to eradicate. It is truly 
worthy of freemen to make a resolute stand against it. 
It is a melancholy reflection, that the peace making 
system which God gave to his creatures, undoubtedly 
for their good, should be converted by them into the 
material for war, and justification of violence. Let 
the kings of Spain and Italy, if they will, torment their 
fellow-men, under the pretext that they are forward- 
ing the will of Heaven; let the spirit of Louis the 
Fourteenth rise up to exterminate the French Hugo- 
nots, and let these in turn retaliate with unsparing 
and insatiable violence, the injuries inflicted on them 
by their cruel and bloody oppressors ; let the intole- 
rant spirit of Henry the Eighth, the furious bigotry of 
a Mary, the cold-hearted systematic and cruel policy 
of an E izabeth, continue to crimson the fields of Eng- 
land with the blood of the innocent, let the gore-soak- 
en ghost of Oliver Cromwell send the Catholics of 
Ireland to " Hell or to Connaught," let Ferdinand of 
Spain yet rave about his favorite Inquisition, and let 



fequfsrriON examined. 



i? 



the Duke of York, the heir apparent to the British 
throne, announce his intention of restoring the expi- 
ring Inquisition of his country to its former blazing 
brightness, let the sword and the faggot give the law 
of the tyrant to the slaves of Europe, a wi^er and a 
juster course must govern the American, he has brave- 
ly conquered his enemies, he must also, if necessary, 
conquer himself, if in the war of passion against rea- 
son, and prejudice against religion, he becomes the 
blind ally of intolerance and error, then he has but 
escaped one thraldom to render himself the willing 
captive of another. The sense of justice which ac- 
tuated Washington did more than even his bravery, 
for his country ; the battle of Long Island was ur> 
propitious to America, it might have been fatal and 
would be disgraceful, had the Catholics who so nobly 
bled and died on that occasion, been prevented from 
siding with liberty, lest being successful they might 
establish an Inquisition in Maryland; had the Puri- 
tans of New-England been rejected as unfit allies of 
other Christians, the war would not have been check- 
eel at Saratoga, and perhaps the best terms republi- 
cans could expect would be, that the Hudson might 
form the boundary between the British colonies and 
the United States ; had the American Protestant re- 
fused the proffered alliance of Louis the Sixteenth, 
the persecutor of French Protestants, the capture of 
York-Town would possibly not be attempted, and 
file defeat of Corn wai lis be left for another and a 
more distant day. 

The Americans are renowned for nearly all that 
can give a proud celebrity to a nation ; in war they 
had their Washington ; in science, they had their Rit- 
tenhouse ; they had their Franklins, their Henrys, 
(not Henry the spy,) their Hancocks, their Adams's ; 
they have their Jeffersons, their Jacksons, their 
Clays, their Clintons, Fulton gave the steam boat/ 
-Franklin drew the lightning from the Heavens a/4 
rendered it harrnless; American statesmen are£*^- 
ing laws to nations, and disrobing even the Hoty At* 

a* 



IXQUISITION EXAMINE!;. 



liance of the terrors with which it was clad. Can it 
be that such a people will consent to be the submis- 
sive dupes of the greatest deception ever practised 
upon rational man ? Religion and reason equally re- 
ject the monstrous presumption, that the law of a 
meek Saviour can be a code of blood, cruelty, and 
proscription. May Americans while they break the 
tie which bound them politically to their European 
masters, also rid themselves of those errors of even 
kind, which designing sophistry would engraft on the 
human mind. 

The early settlers of British America, as has been 
already observed, brought with them their prejudices, 
and planted them in a soil destined to be that of free 
inquiry and virtuous habits. The natural difficulties 
which the new world opposed to the early settlers, 
their poverty, the low state of literature in an age 
when the art of printing was known but as a new and 
imperfect invention, all contributed to deprive the 
settlers of the benefit of a liberal education, and ex- 
posed them to the influence of deception, and to the 
adoption of errors which craft introduced, andsatanic 
malice alone would ingraft on plants the noblest of 
God's creation. Time, the growth of liberal principles, 
and the operation of benign and equal laws, are gradu- 
ally withdrawing the veil which wicked counsellors 
and blind guides had placed between man and his God, 
a foolish hatred of the Pope is giving way to a love of 
the neighbour ; and a ridiculous belief in witches, to a 
knowledge of true religion. It is- to be regretted that 
the bad leaven is not yet thoroughly worked out of 
the imperfectly enlightened mind. I feel that I owe 
to the land of my residence, the country of my alle- 
giance, the home and birth-place of my children, to 
aid in purging the nation of an error, the more to be 
deplored as being too well calculated to stay the pro- 
gress of rational liberty, at some future day to over- 
throw it, to raise an established religion in the land. 
ai«d, as a very probable consequence, to institute an 
inquisition no matter whether nominally for or agains* 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



19 



Popery, no matter with what professed object, but 
certainly having for its real and sole view, to advance 
the insidious design of some aspiring individual, who 
once in power would be sovereign, the people, thence 
forward, nothing. Every citizen should apply his 
best endeavour to stregthen the power, to secure and 
perpetuate the stability and happiness of his country. 
The loyal soldier oriers his sword ; the patriotic 
banker presents his purse ; an individual not strong 
enough to tight, nor rich enough to contribute the 
precious metal, tenders these pages as a proof of his 
devotion to the public good, and as an evidence of 
his anxious desire that a nation so prosperous, so pro- 
gressive in arts, science, and literature, in refinement 
of every kind that can promote happiness or adorn 
society, should not continue the slave of an ill found- 
ed prejudice, the bane of England, nursed by igno- 
rance, and maintained by tyranny, and which has 
been unfortunately spread over this country, and 
yet in a degree remains, although it ought to have 
been shaken off at the moment when the robe of lib- 
erty was put on. Whatever may be thought of this es- 
say on the score of literary merit, it claims a place 
in the nation's respect, as the tribute of a heart sin- 
cerely devoted to the public good. 



Admitting for a moment, which T do, only for the 
sake of argument, but which I will hereafter deny, 
that the establishment of a bloody inquisition is an 
essential emanation of the Catholic Church, and that 
every Catholic is bound to receive it as an article of 
Catholic faith, then I must say, the outcry against it 
comes with a truly bad grace from those who them- 
selves have instituted an inquisition as scrutinizing, 
a ^persecution as unrelenting, and punishments as 
cruel, as the most exaggerated accounts of those of 
Spain and Portugal. The kings and queens of Eng- 
land, both Catholics and Protestants, seemed to vie 
with each other in acts of cruelty and barbarity, so 
remarkable for a want of forbearance and charity, 



20 



INQUISITION EXAMINE^. 



that every religious sect claiming kindred to heave 
must disavow them. 

It is remarkable that the clamour against the In- 
quisition was loud in proportion as those who con- 
demned it*, were themselves persecutors, the greatest 
persecutor being the loudest beilower; the mildest, 
the least noisy. The British Protestants are an in- 
stance of the former, the Quakers of the latter. Per- 
haps it may be wrong to rank the Quakers even 
among the mildest libellers of religion, for it would 
rather seem that they condemn the institution, as all 
ought to condemn it, without charging its acts to any 
religious sect or tenet. The Protestant, it might be 
supposed, would be restrained by a fear of retaliation, 
but, like the robber, he dares to offend within sight of 
the gallows. That the injured refrained so much from 
a resort to the means of annoyance within his power, 
seems unaccountable. The transactions of the British 
Inquisition have indeed been sufficiently spread be- 
fore the world, and that by several writers, but gene- 
rally more as matter of history, than to retaliate the 
wrongs inflicted by British writers on others. 

It is painful to be obliged to maintain in this en- 
lightened country, that the religion of heaven is not 
Sanguinary. The attempt to prove that it is not so, 
implies a charge that such is the belief of at least some 
of the citizens, it cannot unfortunately be denied that 
the sacrilegious libeller has found his way to free 
America, here then, even here, must be refuted the 
daring libel which ascends to heaven a -d impeaches 
the divinity there. It is painful to have recourse to a 
detail of cruelties inflicted by inquisitorial tribunals in 
a Protestant country, but it is impossible to get fairly 
through our subject without adverting to some of them. 
Could I delight in the recital, I might fill a volume as 
large as Fox's book of Martyrs, and more true than 
many of his statements.* An allusion to some of 



*A more shameless attempt, than this book of mai^rs, to im- 
pose on the credulity of mankind has never been presented to 



tNQJJISITION EXAMINED. 



21 



them is indispensible as my only means of proving 
that inquisitions were of Protestant as well as of Catho- 
lic countries, and that if a clergyman acting as an of- 
ficer of it in Spain be a conclusive proof that it exists 
in virtue of a tenet of the Catholic religion, the Brit- 
ish Protestant must also confess it is an essential ar- 
ticle of his faith, for the ministers of his church were 
prompt in taking their part in the acts of the inquisi- 
torial tribunals of his country. My end must be ob- 
tained if, by this course and exposition of the subject, 
if by this plain reasoning, I direct the public odium 
from a religion which is spotless, to the civil magis- 
trate where alone it can properly rest. I must at 
least succeed in dividing the odium between the li- 
belled Protestant and the libelled Catholic, that is if 
rational beings can still adhere to the ridiculous pre- 
sumption, to the unexamined assumption, that the re- 
ligion of heaven is a system of cruel injustice. The 
persecutions by the British Inquisition, it will be 
found, embraced every head under which we could 
rank the acts of the Spanish. 

In the capricious reign of Henry the Eighth, this 
;J husband without fidelity and lover without delica = 
cy," commissioners were appointed to inquire into 
heresies, and irregular practices. This Inquisition 
was in its power, and the mode of excuting its autho- 
rity not materially different from that established in 
Catholic countries, yet it will not be presumed that it 
had the sanction of papal authority, for the " defender 
of the faith" showed no inclination to submit his will 
to the Pope, or to seek his hohness's ratification of 
any regulation he might think proper to propose. It 
is not too much to suppose that had Henry remained 
in full communion with the church of Rome, this in- 



the world. I cannot enter into particulars without swelling- this 
work far beyond the original design, nor without the risk of 
being drawn into theological controversy which I am resolved 
to avoid. The Book of martyrs is a volume of falsehoods which 
should be excluded from every library; and, as it is false, re- 
jected by every christian and moral society. 



/ 



22 



IXQU1SITI0N EXAMINED. 



quiry into heresies would be dignified not only with 
the name of Inquisition to which it was fairly entitled, 
but it would also be designated as popish. 

This thing called heresy seems to have no definite 
or general meaning ; the lexicographers explain it, as 
an opinion contrary to the fundamental or orthodox 
points of religion, it seems to be derived from the 
french word heresie, or from the latin word hasresis, 
and this later from hasreo to stick or adhere, and thus 
far may very conveniently be applied to different pur- 
poses. In Spain it is a denial of transubtantiation ; in 
England, an avowal of it. Henry the Eighth called 
every man a heretic, who believed more or less than 
Rife el eb rated six articles; his successor Edward the 
Sixth threw aside these six articles, and substituted 
some thirty or forty other articles, to dibelieve, doubt, 
or dispute which constituted heresy in his reign. Un- 
til men will agree what constitutes orthodoxy in reli- 
gion, they will never agree as to the proper definition 
of heresy. 

To discover and punish offences against Henry's 
six articles, was the duty assigned to his inquisitorial 
commissioners ; punishments were awarded accord- 
ing to a fixed scale, " The denial of the real presence 
in the sacrament subjected the person to death by 
burning, and to the same forfeiture as in cases of trea- 
son, without being admitted the privilege of abjura- 
tion. The denial of any of the other five articles^ 
even though recanted, was punishable by forfeiture o£ 
goods and chattels, and imprisonment during the 
king's pleasure : an obstinate adherence to error, or a 
relapse, was adjudged to be felony, and punishable 
with death. The marriage of priests was subject to 
the same p wishments, Abstaining from confession 
and from receiving the eucharist at the accustomed 
seasons, subjected the person to fine and imprison- 
ment daring the kind's pleasure, and if the criminal 
persevered after correction, he was punished with 
death and forfeiture, as in cases of felony." 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



23 



This surely is an Inquisition to all intents and pur- 
poses. Had it been related of Rome, Spain, or Por- 
tugal, it would be charged to popery and set down as 
an article of Catholic faith. But being a regulation 
of England it is to be passed over as quite inoffensive, 
yet the church was as fairly chargeable with it in Eng- 
land, as the church of Rome would be, had a similar 
law been promulged in Italy or Spain. The fact is, 
religion has no concern in the affair. In Catholic 
and in Protestant countries it is alike a mere state 
policy, which the only civil government could establish 
and which it only directs, using the name of the church 
as a cloak, and employing ministers of the respective 
religions, when they could be obtained, to take seme 
kind of agency in the transactions. The church is not 
to be judged by the conduct of its ministers 5 it disclaims 
acts of blood in England as well as in Rome ; the 
Protestant and the Catholic tenets are in this respect 
alike ; and the Protestant who would not willingly 
see his own church libelled, should not hastily libel 
another. 



Of the particular acts of the Inquisition in Catholic 
countries it becomes quite unnecessary to give a de- 
tail. They have been so blazoned forth, and that so 
often, in so many shapes, and by so many persons, by 
books, pamphlets, newspapers, ballads, shows, pic- 
tures., &c. that all must have heard of them. The 
truth would quite fill a respectable sized volume, the 
zeal of religious writers, the vindictiveness of persons 
who suffered under its lash, and the private interest 
of those who seek to better their fortunes by dealing 
in the marvellous, have added such a mass of fiction 
and exagerations, that a connoisseur in this kind of 
composition, might collect quite a delectable library 
or museum. I am no apologist for that tribunal, and 
will not undergo the trouble of defending it in any 
shape, but leave it, or rather its memory, to res: un- 
der all the odium the utmost stretch of misrepresent 



24 



INQUISITION EXAMINED 



tation can heap on it, as a merited infliction for the 
wrongs it did to others. I deny not its existence, but 
I will certainly prove, that it was a civil institution, 
opposed in its proceedings by the principles and laws 
of revealed religion. The greater the excesses of 
the Inquisition, the more incredible it must appear 
that religion could sanction its proceedings ; those 
enemies of religion who magnified the crimes of the 
Inquisition, have pursued the worst possible course to 
obtain belief in their accounts; the credulous followers 
of Johannah Southcote might possibly lend an ear, 
but every man of sense or discrimination must surely 
discard such rhapsodies as underserving attention. 

As it may be new to some readers to observe the 
term inquisition applied to the acts of British monarchs, 
it becomes incumbent on the writer to give evidence 
of the justness of the application, some proof that such 
existed in a Protestant country and among a people 
principal y Protestant. The better to elucidate the 
similarity between the two Inquisitions, I will try to ar- 
range the character and acts of the British tribunal un- 
der such heads as must have most forcibly struck those 
who have read the acts of the Catholic Inquisition. 
Should any pious zealot deem the evidence incom- 
plete, I pledge myself to supply the deficiency to 
heart's content in a new edition to which this work 
will very possibly arrive. 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



25 



The British Inquisition. 

Hume, who v/ill not be suspected of any leaning to 
popery, gives the following account of the British 
High Court of Commission. 

" Any word or writing which tended towards here- 
sy \ schism, or sedition, was punishable by the High 
Commissioners, or any three of them ; they aione 
were judges of what expressions had that tenden- 
cy : they proceeded not l^y information, but upon 
rumour, suspicion, or according to their own fancy. 
They administered an oath, by which the party cited 
before them, was bound to answer any question which 
should be propounded to him : whoever refused this 
oath, though under pretext that he might be thereby 
brought to accuse himself, or his dearest friend, was 
punishable by imprisonment. In short, an inquisitorial 
tribunal, with all its terrors and iniquities, was erected 
in the kingdom. Full discretionary powers were be- 
stowed, with regard to the inquiry, trial, sentence, 
and penalty inflicted ; except only, that corporal pun- 
ishments w ere restrained by the patent of the prince 
which erected that court, not by the act of parliament 
which empowered him." Milnor says, the dissenters 
filled the kingdom with complaints of the oppression 
which they suffered from this court during the reigns 
of Elizabeth and the two Stuarts, representing it as 
much more, intolerable than the Inquisition itself." 
Maclaine, in his notes on Mosheim, shows that, 44 the 
high commission court, was empowered to make in- 
quiry, not only by legaf means, but also by rack, tor- 
ture, inquisition and imprisonment ; that the fines and 
imprisonment to which it condemned persons, were 
limited by no rule, but its own pleasure." 

A multitude of authorities could be produced in 
evidence, that this British tribunal was in effect an 
Inquisition. It would be absurd in this case to ad- 
here to a mere word or name in the trial of a fact, or 
to insist that there was no inquisition in England, "be- 
cause the High Court of Commission was not express* 

3 



26 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



ly known as such. An acute writer* observes, that 
" the chief difference between the two courts (those 
of Spain and England) consisted in their names ; one 
was the court of Inquisition, the other, of High Com- 
mission" It was charged on the Spanish Inquisition, 
that it was actively hostile to the introduction of 
books or writings calling in question its own power, 
criticising its conduct, or disputing in any respect, the 
orthodoxy of the Catholic faith. The British court 
acted on a similar principle, all writings opposed to. 
or confronting its doctrines with a view to their can- 
did examination, were proscribed, and the authors 
visited by all the force of a court, as unaccountable 
for its transactions, as its power was unquestionable 
and unlimited. The law T conferred such power on 
Henry the Eighth, that every act of his in respect to 
religion, must be taken as the law of the land ; his 
instructions were to be held as the only rule of faith. 
To preach or maintain any thing contrary to his will 
was highly penal, the convict u for the first offence 
shall recant, for the second abjure and bear a faggot, 
and for the third, he shall be adjudged a heretic, be 
burned, and loose all his goods and chattels." These 
laws were substantially adopted in after reigns, they 
became the code spiritual of the court of high com- 
mission, so far as a tribunal which professed to be in- 
dependent of control, could be supposed amenable 
to any authority beyond its own will. Had Henry 
the Eighth become a convert to Mahometanism, he 
might have had a seraglio of wifes, but he was inclined 
to Catholicity, and probably impressed with the 
belief that it was the true religion, his passions 
gained an ascendancy over his reason, he departed 
from the Catholic faith just as far as was necessary to 
the indulgence of his desires to a certain extent, and, 
by an imperfect or formal compliance with that reli- 
gion in other respects, seemed to propose a compro- 
mise with heaven, whereby to secure to himself the 



* Rymer. 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



27 



pleasures of two worlds. It cannot however be doubt- 
ed, that a man who could indulge in marriage after 
marriage, even by the murder of wife after wife^ 
would reject the Bible for the Alcoran, were there no 
other road open to the gratification of his desires. It is 
not impossible, that England owes to the accomoda- 
ting manners of Archbishop Cranmer, that Turkish 
rule did not exclude Christianity from that nation. 
That a bad law should remain inoperative, or, in tech- 
nical language, a dead statute, is no apology for those 
who enacted it, that this apology, futile as it would be, 
cannot be alledged in defence of the British zealots, 
appears at large in the history of the last three centu- 
ries. That history, so far as the present subject calls 
for its review, can give little gratification to the read- 
er, or to the writer, it is a history of injuries and re- 
prisals, of murders and counter-murders, not only of- 
fensive to every honest moral feeling, but also so 
many sacrilegious insults to the divinity. These trans- 
actions will be passed over as lightly as possible, but 
they must be partially alluded to, and partially de- 
tailed, for it seems necessary, in order to prove that 
the Spanish Inquisition was not Catholic, to show 
that there also, existed an Inquisition in Protestant 
countries, which the Protestant will doubtless say, and 
say truly, was not Protestant. 



Heresy. 

The reader is presumed to be satisfied, that an in- 
quisition existed in England as well as in Italy, the 
laws of that country for the punishment of heretics 
were not dead statutes. The parliament was not 
more complaisant in conferring power on the prince, 
that the latter was prompt in its exercise. 

Henry the Eighth, a prince half Protestant, half 
Catholic, obtained of his parliament the enactment of 
every law which could minister to his pleasure or 
subserve his unruly ambition ; it surrendered to him 



28 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



in effect and in fact, both the civil and religious li- 
berties of the country. Among the parliamentary 
enactments was one which declared that the king, 
for the time being, with the advice of council,* or the 
ma jor part of them (the council of course appointed 
by himself) might issue proclamations, which should 
have the force of acts of parliament, and under whai 
pains and penalties he should think proper. Under 
the authority thus vested, commissioners were ap- 
pointed to inquire into heresies and irregular practi- 
ces. Henry was the least fit man in existence for the 
exercise of such monstrous powers, as the law confer- 
red on him. He was so unsteady in his purposes, so 
unfaithful to his promises, so cruel and unrelenting 
to his enemies, and so treacherous to his friends, that 
his course of life was a perpetual paradox. As he ad- 
vanced in years, his evil propensities caught still 
greater hold of him, until there seemed to remain of 
the man, but the outer appearance. So formidable 
did he grow, even to his friends, that, when death ap- 
proached and seemed inevitable, there was but one 
man in his kingdom who had the resolution to advise 
the monster to prepare for his end. During the reign 
of this first "defender of the faith" the executions of 
persons who differed from him in religious opinions, 
were numerous and horrid, including Catholics and 
Protestants, for neither could be safe where the king 



* The privy council of the king- is never called together by 
public proclamation, the practice is to summon them by a pri- 
vate and personal notice. The court etiquette forbids the at- 
tendance of those not specially noticed. From this it may be 
seen how ineffectual must be any presumed check of the council 
over the proposed measures of a king*, who appoints the whole 
council in the first instance, may select from them in the second, 
and finally may dismiss those who -prove restiff. The late king" 
of England erased with his own hand, from the council book, 
the name of Charles James Fox. His vice-king of Ireland, 
about the same time, did a similar honour to Henry Grattan. 
These gentlemen, by this act of royal notice, lost their title of 
% right honorable," they enjoyed to their death that which the 
public voice conferred, the title of patriot. 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 29 

professed a religion different from both, and at a time 
when aii accusation of heresy was the surest, as it was 
the common course of attacking those whose enmity 
was feared or whose loyalty was suspected. Among 
the latest acts of his cruelty, was an order for the exe- 
cution of the Duke of Norfolk ; the warrant was in 
the hands of the executioner, but the death of the ty- 
rant took place in time to save the Duke's life. The 
capriciousness of this prince was strongly exemplified 
in the sacrifice of his favourite Cromwell. This man 
was a protege and faithful adherent of his royal mas- 
ter. From being the son of a poor blacksmith, he 
was advanced by the king, until finally placed at the 
head of the commission for inquiring into and sup- 
pressing heresies, but even here, he was not safe. 
The king suspected the fidelity or became jealous of 
the power of his favourite minister. Cromwell was 
accused of heresy and treason, and condemned with- 
out being heard in his own defence. One only fa- 
vour could be extorted from the tyrant, and that was, 
that the fallen minister might not be burned as a here- 
tic. " He fell (says the historian) by that unconstitu- 
tional power, which he himself had raised." Henry 
was one of those few men who leave this world, without 
some friend to regret their death, or delight in pro- 
nouncing their eulogy. More disposed to conceal 
than to recount the cruelties that disgraced this reign, 
I will not, while unprovoked, enter into unnecessary 
particulars. Montague states, that " during this reign, 
barbarities were committed under the forms of justice, 
as shocking to human nature, as any to be met with 
in history, under the most bloody tyrants." 

Prosecutions for heresy, did not cease with the 
death of Henry. In after reigns the fierceness of an- 
ti-christian laws, seemed to be maintained as if with 
a desire not merely to emulate, but if possible to out- 
do every precedent. The reign of the infant Edward 
the Sixth, the successor of Henry the Eighth, com- 
menced with the formal introduction of the reformed 
religion into England, under the auspices of Arcb- 



30 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



bishop Cranmer, its chief champion. This young 
prince, who died before he reached manhood, was 
made instrumental in the introduction of the new re- 
ligion, and the punishment of the heretics of the old. 
The viciousness of a bad education, and the errors 
imposed on his young mind, added to the circum- 
stance that he had not attained the years, when reflec- 
tion may discover error, might be pleaded in extenuation 
of his crimes, butthehistory of Britishkingsand queens, 
from the reign of Henry the' Eighth even to this day, 
presents but a continued, uninterrupted persecution 
of the subjects, on account of their particular religious 
tenets, whether by a High court of commission acting 
under the immediate government of a king whose 
word was to have the force of an act of parliament, 
or by a judge with a formal act of parliament in hi& 
hand, is very immaterial to the suflerer. The pre- 
sent mitigated severity of the law arises out of cir- 
cumstances over which kings have no positive con- 
trol, and a progress of refinement which cannot be 
arrested by the evil disposed. A modern speech in 
the British parliament assures us that the zeal of the 
early reformers, has been transmitted to the heir ap- 
parent of the British crown. The history of the last 
twenty years is in evidence that were evil fortune to 
give Britain a king willing and capable to erect a new 
court of commission, there would not be wanting men 
and clergy, capable and willing to perform the duties 
of the office, and that with ail the barbarity of the 
worst ages. The British inquisition yet exists, but 
happily in its wane, the Duke of York may be troub- 
led with qualms of conscience, Archbishop Magee 
may sing requiems to the memory of his pious proto- 
type Cranmer, and Sir Abraham Bradley King, may 
drink to the glorious and immortal memory, there 
will however soon remain of the British, but what re- 
mains of the Spanish inquisition— its history. When 
men will no longer have interest in misrepresentation, 
eur subject will be candidly investigated, and all will 
agree in this truths that designing hypocrites have too 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



31 



successfully laboured to establish the absurdity, that 
revealed religion participated in the bloody deeds of 
the civil governments of Europe. 



Death. 

The number of persons who lost their lives in Eng- 
land, by persecution on account of their religious 
tenets, are so great, of grades so various, and in such 
a variety of ways, that distinct specification is as 
impossible, as it would be disgusting. Of the fact 
generally, enough is already published ; and few, if 
any, there are, who do not know more on this head, 
than I would wish to insert, were the long catalogue 
before me. Enough here to say, that the victims 
were very numerous, some dying in consequence of 
the length and severity of imprisonment, or the priva- 
tions they endured, others died under or in conse- 
quence of the severity of torture, and man) by the 
common mode of the gallows. This ignominious 
death was sometimes attended with those barbarous 
tortures reserved by law for persons convicted of 
high treason, but never executed in their utmost ri- 
gour, except when the inllicters made religion the 
pretext for cruelty. Heretics were not only hanged 
in England, but, agreeably to the horrid sentence of 
the law, and to the no less horrid spirit of the times, 
cut down while yet alive, their bowels torn out, and 
burned before their faces, their heads cut off, their 
bodies divided into quarters, and the mangled carca- 
ses left to be disposed of, as the king might please to 
direct. , 



Co rpora I Punis hmen t. 

This head embraces cases where actual torture 
was not applied, and where death by the hands of the 
executioner did not close the sufferings of the prisoner. 
Like those doomed to death, their number is too 



32 



INQUISITION' EXAMINED 



great for specific detail. All have heard, more or less% 
of the corporal pains inflicted on heretics, and al- 
though there occurred but a single case, it would be 
sufficient for the present purpose. I will here men- 
tion one, to make a case, it is but a comparatively 
mild specimen of the many I could adduce. Owen 
Hopton a lieutenant of the tower of London, caused 
one of his prisoners, a young lady of a respectable 
family, to be severely scourged, because he could not 
prevail on her to attend the public service of a church 
which she deemed heretical. The governor of York- 
castle acted, if not with more justice, certainly with 
less cruelty, he dragged by force his numerous pri- 
soners, and compelled them to be present during the 
service in a church, to the doctrines of which they 
were religiously opposed. These, it is true, are not 
the immediate acts of government, but if not directed 
by it, they yet show, that the underling felt himself at 
liberty to act at discretion towards his prisoners. A 
government which may rule without responsibility, 
will seldom be just in its decisions, because it is more 
directed to the safety or advantage of the person of 
the ruler, than to the benefit or good of the govern- 
ed ; the evil genius that directs the head, is too apt to 
descend through the body, and every subaltern tyrant 
apes the manners of his chief, the example of permit- 
ted, like that of authorized, persecution, barbarizes 
the people ; this reaches its worst pitch, when the sup- 
port of religion becomes the pretext of wrong, for if 
the sword may be drawn in vindication of the cause 
of God, will not it follow, that the advocates of each 
creed, as they succeed to an ascendency of moral 
power, become vested with the bloody authority of 
extirpating their neighbours ? The civil form of govern- 
ment adopted by the citizens of these States, is gradu- 
ally extinguishing the danger of such a trial in this 
country, and in this change we have our best, perhaps 
our only security, that America has not became a3 
Europe was described at one time to, " one wild al- 
tar, on which every religious sect offered up human 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



33 



victims to its creed," " enormous prisons where one 
part of the creation are distressed captives, and the 
other their unpitying keepers." Americans ! do not 
be led into the belief that the Catholic religion in one 
country, or the Protestant religion in another, ever 
sanctioned the bloody decrees of an Inquisition in 
either, for, were this the case, you might be bound to 
drive them from your country. The law which al- 
lows liberty of conscience to all, and protects every 
individual in the exercise of his religion, does not ex- 
tend to those, whose belief and practices are subver- 
sive of public order and peace, or destructive of liberty 
and of life. Could 1 believe that the Christian faith 
was, as a fundamental tenet of it, sanguinary, I would 
free myself from its discipline and restraints, its duties, 
and mortifications, and trusting entirely to Providence 
as to my fate in the next world, enjoy as far as possi- 
ble the comforts of this, the convenient seat of the 
Deist. 



Torture. 

Dr. Milnor in his letters to a Prebendary, says, " it 
appears, by an account of one of the sufferers, that the 
following tortures were in use against the Catholics in 
the tower. 

" 1. The common rack, in which the limbs were 
stretched by levers. 

" 2. The scavengers daughter, so called, being 
a hoop in which the body was bent, until the head 
and feet met. 

" 3. The chamber called " little ease," being a 
hole so small, that a person could neither stand, sit, or 
lie straight in it. 

u 4. The iron gauntlets. 

" In some instances, needles were thrust under the 
prisoner's nails." 

After this, it may be expected that the justly indig- 
nant cry against the Inquisition in Catholic countries, 



34 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



may be extended to all inquisitions, wherever the 
country, whatever the religion of the inquisitors. Al- 
though the British torture should be confined to an 
application of the instruments and means above reci- 
ted, yet it may boldly stand comparison with the Lis- 
bon tribunal, admitting as truth the most exaggerated 
descriptions of it. Coustos stretched upon the rack 
in the dismal dungeon of a Portuguese prison, could 
not surely envy the happiness of the wretch whose 
limbs were stretched on the rack in the tower of Lon- 
don. His dislocated shoulders, \*hile the backs of 
his hands were forced together behind his back, could 
not create more pain or more danger, than must be 
felt by the heretic, the back of w r hose head and feet 
met while he lay bent on the torturing hoop. The 
worst of the dungeons of Goa (and these are repre- 
sented as most wretched) permitted the prisoner to 
stretch his limbs ; that would have been a luxury, to 
the inhabitant of the " Little ease.' 5 The application of 
torture is the act of the Inquisition on which the chief 
reliance is placed by those who use it as an argument 
against the Catholic religion, are they also satisfied 
that it be used in like manner against the Protestant ? 
I presume not. It has nothing to do with either. Tor- 
ture is of human invention. 



Burning. 

The application of fire to the human body is the ut- 
most exertion of torture ; to destroy the body through 
its agency is the consummation of cruelty. If there be 
a religion in the world which can authorize it, that reli- 
gion is not of God. There is no christian sect however 
absurd in some respects may be its practices, that would 
not repel the charge, there is no zealot however fanati- 
cal, who would patiently submit to the accusation. It 
may be the law of the pagan and may be among the 
rites of his religion, but it shall be shown hereafter, 
that such is not the doctrine of revelation, that the 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



35 



church has no power over life or limb, that " the 
church disclaims the right of the sword, and the use 
of fines and confiscation, to promoteherspiritualends." 

The infliction of death by fire is of very early ori- 
gin, and might with little difficulty be traced to a pe- 
riod anterior to popery. In the first century of the 
Christian era, the tyrant Nero caused several 
Christians at Rome to be tied to stakes and burn- 
ed. When this kind of torture was first known in 
England, we shall probably not be able to ascertain 
with certainty, it was however at an early date. 
" We find (says that great commentator Blackstone) 
among our ancient precedents a writ de heretico com- 
burendo, (of burning heretics) which is thought by 
some to be as ancient as the common law itself. " This 
writ was issuable by the civil authority, " being not 
a writ of course, but issuing only by the special direc- 
tion of the king in council." Were it a fundamental 
tenet of religion, that heretics might be burned, the 
execution of it could not be regulated or restrained by 
the civil power, at a time when England w r as a Catho- 
lic country, and its princes acknowledged the spiritual 
supremacy of the Pope, nor can this observation be 
effected by the assertion of Blackstone, that subse- 
quently, in the reign of Henry the Fourth, the power 
of convicting heretics was vested in the diocesan 
alone, and the execution of the sentence made subject 
to the order of the bishop, without waiting the con- 
sent of the crown, for admitting this, yet the practice 
could not be popish, as this new power was given by 
act of parliament, and not derived from any ecclesias- 
tical authority. Thus far it certainly, and avowedly, 
was a civil institution. This writ remained in force 
until the twenty ninth year of Charles the Second, 
when it was abolished by act of parliament. Milnor 
states that this burning act was passed by the parlia- 
ment in the reign of Henry the Fourth, Blackstone, 
says it was only amended or explained at that time, 
this difference of its history is now immaterial, as all 
agree it was a civil institution. Milnor says it was 



3G 



INQUISITION 'EXAMINED. 



passed without any solicition either from the pope or 
the clergy. Sir Mathew Hale insists, in opposition to 
Blackstone, that the writ was not in any case demand- 
able of common right, but " grantable or otherwise. 
merely at the king's discretion. Under this act, two 
anabaptists were burned in the seventeenth year of 
the reign of Elizabeth, and two Arians in the ninth 
of James the First. 

Henry the Eighth who used to send the Catholic 
and Protestant tied together to the place of execution, 
caused nineteen Dutchmen and six women to be ar- 
rested on a charge of heresy, they were examined as 
to their belief in his six articles, fourteen of them were 
burned. This was a British auto de fe. One Lam- 
bert a schoolmaster of London, actuated by imprudent 
zeal, opposed Henry, aided by several of his bishops, 
in a solemn debate to which he was invited or rather 
challenged. The question was on the real presence, 
and Henry being declared victorious, the unfortunate 
Lambert was ordered to retract his opinion ; he re- 
fused, was led off to Smithrield, and there burned. 

Edward the Sixth was early initiated in the piety 
of the times, his zeal ripened quicker than his reason, 
even in his minority he showed no little uneasiness at 
restraint ; had he reached the years of discretion, Pro- 
testantism would have blazed throughout the land. 
This young champion of Christianity was with diffi- 
culty prevented from committing his own sister to the 
flames, to prevent her from committing idolatry. 

The change of religion from the half popery of 
Henry and the full protestantism of Edward, to the 
entire Catholicity of Mary made no alleviating altera- 
tion in persecution on account of religion, except as 
to the objects of it. The Smithfield fire was scarcely 
quenched by the termination of one reign, when it 
was lit up anew on the commencement of another. 
Henry's opposition to the Pope left no room for pre- 
suming that popery had any direction or concern in 
his inquisition neither was it pretended that Mary had 
any such authority from the Holy See. So far from 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



37 



this being the case, it is well known, that in the in- 
structions from the pope, handed to the queen by 
Cardinal Pole, there is not a sentence recommending 
persecution, or proposing the introduction of an in- 
quisition, nor had such been proposed by the body of 
the clergy, nor yet is there any reference to persecu- 
tion, or the enforcing of religion in any shape, in the 
transactions of the synod held at that time in England 
by the Catholic bishops, at which the pope's legate 
presided. Burnet, a protestant writer, highly preju- 
diced against Catholicity, acknowledges the liberality 
and tolerating spirit which actuated the Catholic 
bishops on this occasion : yet we will find that Mary, 
herself a Catholic, pursued a course in no manner in- 
fluenced by the example or precepts of her clergy, 
but giving loose to her passions, she seemed resolved 
to give no quarter to those who differed from her in 
religious principles. So odious was her conduct to 
the Spaniards, and so desirous were they of exculpa- 
ting themselves and their religion from any participa- 
tion in the sanguinary course pursued by the British 
queen, that friar Alphonsus had directions to disclaim 
it, from the pulpit, the preacher directly charged the 
English bishops who countenanced the queen, with 
being the authors of such inhuman and abominable 
cruelties. The preacher probably aliuded to Gardi- 
ner and Bonner, who, in opposition to Cardinal Pole 
and other bishops, supported the policy which de- 
termined Mary, without any appeal to church autho- 
rity, to take upon herself the responsibility of her vio- 
lent conduct. The light in which the turbulent and 
menacing conduct of her Protestant subjects was re- 
presented by the advocates of persecution, was a 
strong appeal to the timidity of a woman, nor could 
it be overbalanced in her estimation by all that was 
said on the side of religion, in that cabinet coun- 
cil which took the unhappy resolution of employing 
fire and faggot against the British Protestants, to the 
eternal disgrace of all who were engaged in it. Du- 
ring the reign cf this weak princess, England literally 

4 



38 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



presented but a national auto de fL Happy would it 
be for England could persecution for religion end with 
her reign, but we shall see that, cameleon-like, perse- 
cution but changed colour, while it continued substan- 
tially the same. 

Mary was a devotee to the Catholic religion, but 
like many of the bigots of other persuasions, her zeal 
was of that kind which would set the house of God on 
fire. Between ambition and piety, both ill regulated, 
we find in her character a strange medly of incongrui- 
ty and absurdity. It is not among the least of her in- 
consistencies that while not denying but rather ac- 
knowledging the supremacy of the pope in spirituals, 
she. yet retained the title of the head of the church. 
Among the barbarous acts during the reign of Mary, 
her enemies or rather the enemies of popery, rest 
their accusations against the Catholic religion, princi- 
pally on the burning of Archbishop Cranmer. u Qui 
gladio vivit gladio peribit." This man was conspicuous- 
ly known during three successive reigns. A popish 
priest, he privately and publicly violated his solemn 
vow deliberately made in the face of heaven, and in 
the presence of the God of all christians. The pam- 
pered tool of the lecherous Henry, he scandalously 
exercised his sacerdotal function to dissolve the king's 
marriage, he put asunder those whom God put to- 
gether. Throwing off every semblance of the reli^ 
gion he so long and so insincerely professed, he as 
Protestant Primate of England, became the counsel- 
lor of the child-king Edward the Sixth, advising and 
abetting the persecution and burning of heretics ; 
finally, alternately, adopting and rejecting every creed 
which revelation, zeal, caprice, or chance, offered, 
after professing popery, swearing to support the six ar- 
ticles, and forswearing both, after displaying the cow- 
ardice of a false christian, and the insincerity of a real 
hypocrite, after making sacrilege minister to his word- 
ly convenience, and bigamy to his sensual appetite, 
he expiated his complicated crimes at the stake. The 
queen Mary having caused him to be indicted and 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



39 



convicted of heresy, he was sent to Smithfield and 
there burned to death, a frightful instance of the in- 
stability of wordly grandeur, as it was of the cruelty 
of human nature. His life was a dishonour to his spe- 
cies, his death a lasting blot on the name of queen 
Mary. 

Another person sacrificed to her vengeance was 
John Rogers. The death of this man, more than that 
of any other, has been made the instrument of exci- 
ting hatred against popery, of drawing the indignation 
of Protestants about the head of every Catholic in 
Christendom, and all this for the misconduct of one 
woman. There is scarcely a school in which Pro- 
testant children are taught in the British dominions, 
where the sufferings of John Rogers, printed in penny 
and two penny pamphlets, may not be seen, with a 
picture of this minister, as a frontispiece, representing 
him standing in the midst of the flames, and expiring 
in the presence of his family. All this is industrious- 
ly charged to popery, and thus is the infant Protestant 
taught to hate his Catholic neighbour. Such an edu- 
cation is contrary to all just notions of religion, and 
to all proper views of morality. This book has been 
sent from England to the British colonies in America, 
and here reprinted for the edification of the rising 
generation. It may yet be seen in the windows of 
our picture shops, and school book stores. Republi- 
cans of America ! the sufferings of John Rogers is in 
the hands of your children, and to be found on the 
desks of some of those teachers, to whom you confide 
their instruction. As the sufferings of John Rogers 
are matter of history, they may be told, although pos- 
sibly it might be more consonant with sound morality 
to suppress the book. As this history may tend to 
create a dislike to cruelty, it may be even useful, al- 
though it might possibly be better to produce respect 
for virtue, by figuring its own loveliness, than by dis- 
gusting us by its opposite. It may perhaps be deem- 
ed by some moralists, right to impress the infant mind 

• ;f b a dislike of queen Mary; but it is abominable to 



40 



INQUISITION EXAMINED, 



make us bate each other, because John Rogers ant 
#nglish minister, was put to death by order of a British 
queen, a transaction in which no American had the 
least concern or part. 

The persevering industry of some writers to charge 
to the religion of the divinity, the crimes of his crea- 
tures, is no where more shamefully evinced than in 
the writings of Protestant historians, respecting the 
reign of this princess. CouM I believe that any tenefc 
of the Catholic religion rendered it obligatory on the 
queen to send Cranmer, whatever may have been his 
errors, to the stake, I would be as loud as John Rogers 
ever was, in calling dow r n destruction, fire, and light- 
ning on the " whore of Babylon/' The existence of 
such a persecuting spirit in the church is contradicted 
by every just idea of religion, by every hook of the 
New Testament, by the example of our Saviour, and 
by the conduct of the primitive christians, as shall be- 
clearly demonstrated, when I come to that part of my 
subject. As respects Mary, it should be noticed, that 
she was opposed in all her bloody proceedings by 
Cardinal Pole, the pope's legate, who succeeded 
Cranmer, as the Archbishop of Canterbury. This 
conduct of the Cardinal and his successful interposi- 
tion whereby several Protestants escaped the flames, 
is candidly acknowledged by Protestant writers. Were 
it the religious duty of Cardinal Pole to encourage 
these murders, had heaven required the sacrifice of 
him, however strong might have been the feelings of 
his nature, however opposed to cruelty his heart, he 
yet would have offered up the victim ; had any tenet 
of his religion, required or sanctioned the cruelties of 
queen Mary, he would not dare to interpose his high 
influence and authority, to suspend them, even neu- 
trality would not escape the papal censure. How 
then can it be presumed, in face of this evidence, that 
bloody executions of heretics is a fundamental tenet 
of the Catholic religion, and how especially can such 
be maintained by Protestant writers, with the fact be- 
fore their eyes, that Archbishop Cranmer was corv 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



41 



Renting to, sanctioning, aiding and abetting in the 
murdering of Protestants as well as Catholics.* Had 
Cranmer and Pole been equally infamous, had they 
vied in commission of crime even unto murder, had 
they united in the erection of inquisitions, in inflict- 
ing tortures, and in the establishment of an auto de 
ft in England, it would not amount to evidence that 
either the Protestant or Catholic religion sanctioned 
such proceedings. 

Queen Mary died on the 17th of November, 1558, 
after a violent reign of five years four months and 
eleven days, in the forty-second year of her age, 
England was released from her cruel government, but 
unhappily the inquisitorial persecution did not cease 
with her demise, it only underwent another change, 
or rather was restored to what Cranmer made it in 
the reign of Edward. Cardinal Pole died within a 
few hours after the decease of the queen. Had he 
lived, he would doubtless, as the first Catholic in the 
kingdom, have been the first object of that persecu- 
tion which Elizabeth set on foot against her Catholic 
subjects. It is not impossible that he would have 
made food for a pious lire, and furnished a subject for 
a picture as moving as that of John Rogers in the 
flames of Smithfield. If, however, it be deemed ad- 
visable to furnish a new edition of the sufferings of 
John Rogers, with an additional picture and an addi- 
tional hymn, so as to represent at once the cruelties 
of both English Protestants and English Catholics, 
the history of the kings and queens of England will 
furnish ample materials. Had the Cardinal been in 
England during the time when Henry was divorcing 
his wives, nothing could save his life, his sincere piety 
would have brought on him the malice of Cranmer, 
his opposition to the measures of Henry would have 
ensured him the hatred of that bloody tyrant. His 
old mother, however, felt the vengeance which could 
not reach him* She was imprisoned, and, after various 



* Cobbett 

4* 



42 



INQUISITION EXAMINED 



vain attempts to influence her to call home her soi: 
from his travels, or to cause him to signify his appro- 
val of the measures of Henry, she was, without the 
show of justice, butchered. A representation of ar« 
executioner, pursuing and chasing an old woman of 
seventy, around the public stage raised for her execu- 
tion, wounding her with his axe as often as he could 
reach her, and at length dragging her mangled car- 
case to the block where he parted her grey head from 
her emaciated body, would be a scene the horror of 
which could not be rendered greater even by a Smith- 
field fire. 



Elizabeth who during the reign of her sister Mary f 
hypocritically professed the Roman Catholic religion, 
on mounting the British throne, threw off the mask, 
and as head of the British church, publicly professed 
the principles of the reformation. To pourtray the 
true character of this queen is not very easy, her reign 
was one of terror, the severest interdictions were laid 
on the press, it fell nearly entirely into the hands of 
over zealous Protestants, or cold and timid Catholics, 
between the promulgation of falsehoods and suppres- 
sion of truths, this- might be justly styled an age of 
darkness and error. Under the pretext of suppres- 
sing popery, laws w r ere passed to prevent education, 
a measure so opposed to the professed principles of 
protestantism, that it must seem unaccountable it was 
not rather censored than approved by those who re- 
presented the reformed creed as tolerating, liberal, 
and enlightening. It was among the charges which 
the press in those days made against the Catholics, that 
they read and gave a wrong construction to the bible, 
yet the very principle of the new doctrine adopted 
and announced the right of private interpretation of 
the written word of God, and that it contained all that 
was necessary to be known, yet the subjects were to 
be kept illiterate w r hereby they must be prevented 
from reading the law. and left open to be influenced 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



43 



solely by the opinion of others. Elizabeth's first pro- 
ceeding, after she attained to power, was to cause all 
the institutions of Mary on the subject of heresy, to 
be annulled, and others to be enacted quite as excep- 
tionable, the mean difference consisted in this, Mary 
persecuted Protestants, Elizabeth persecuted Catho- 
lics. 

The biographers of Elizabeth represent her as a 
model of human perfection, and her reign one most 
glorious for England : it was not altogether so. She 
lived unmarried, and would not listen to council on 
this head, but her shameless amours with several of 
the nobility and gentlemen of her court, the most re- 
markable of any in Europe for the dissoluteness of its 
practices, became so notorious that even her flatterers 
could not but condemn them, and some of those who 
revelled in its wantonness even boasted of their exces- 
ses, to such a degree did the beastly gallantry of Eliza- 
beth's court arrive. In fact, the queen set the ex- 
ample, her paramours and iheir minions followed it 
up. The remainder of her real character too well 
corresponded with that just mentioned, she was proud 3 
haughty, and overbearing, fond of flattery, dress, and 
costly attendance on her person ; vain, she was an 
egotist, fond of displaying her accomplishments, she 
sought from her subjects a semi-adoration ; envious, 
she could not bear a rival, the beauty of Mary queen of 
Scots was intolerable and led in a great degree to the 
protraPlfed sufferings and finally to the execution of 
that princess. Elizabeth was irritable, impatient, and 
passionate, she cursed, she swore, and even spit upon 
those about her. Full of her own importance and 
what she believed due to her exalted station, she re- 
quired the most passive obedience from her subjects. 
Those persons immediately engaged about her per- 
son seldom failed, when they approached her, to sig* 
nify their sense of her rank by some act of servile 
obeisance 5 it was even said, that many persons of 
the lower rank actuated by hope or fear paid her an 
unbecoming veneration in the open street, 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



The sovereigns prerogative was, in her mind, so' ifi 
disputable inherent that she was resolved not only to 
maintain it, but also, if possible, to exercise it withou ; 
limit ; and it was the understood duty of her friend- 
in parliament, so to maintain it, the servile parlia- 
ment gratified her almost to her utmost desire, wi she 
possessed (said an intelligent foreigner) by her prero- 
gative whatever was requisite for the government of 
the realm. She could, at her pleasure, suspend the 
operation of existing statutes, or issue proclamation? 
which should have the force of law. In her opinion, 
the chief use of parliaments was to vote money, to 
regulate the minutiae of trade, and to legislate for in- 
dividual and local interest."* " It w r as asserted (says 
another writer) that the queen inherited both an en- 
larging and restraining power ; by her prerogative she 
might set at liberty what was restrained by the statute 
or otherwise, and by her prerogative she might restrain 
what was otherwise at liberty : that the royal prero- 
gative was not to be canvassed, nor disputed, nor ex- 
amined, and not even admit of smy limitation. That 
absolute princes such as the sovereigns of England. 
were a species of divinity. That it was in vain to at- 
tempt tying the queen's hands by laws or statutes, 
since by means of her dispensing power, she could 
loosen herself at pleasure : and that even if a clause 
should be annexed to a statute excluding her dispen-' 
sing power, she could first dispense zuith the clause, 
and then with the statute.^ ie 

If powers like these vested in such a woi/ian as 
Elizabeth produced those u golden days'- to England 
pictured to us by partial writers ; if such power in 
such hands djd not produce tyranny in the monarch, 
and immorality in the people, then it may be said, that 
unlimited authority in the crown is not dangerous to 
the governed, although it were placed- 'in- the hands 



*The extract as quoted here, is taken from a review of Fox-s 
book of Martyrs, by "William Eusebius Andrews of London 

1824r 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



of a ruffian. The reign of Elizabeth produced no 
argument in support of such a position. However 
the days might have been "golden" to her favorites, 
they were to the nation and particularly to her Catho- 
Irc subjects inquisitorial tyrannic, and bloody. A 
system of espionage, false informations, accredited 
spies, rewarded apostacy, led the way to arbitrary 
and unjust imprisonments, to confiscations, torture 
and death. The judges and magistrates were bribed, 
and justice laid prostrate at the foot of the throne. 

" A foreigner, who had been ambassador in Eng- 
;; land, informs us, that under Elizabeth the adminis- 
" tration of justice was more corrupt than under her 
" predecessors. We have not the means of instituting 
i; the comparison. But we know that in her first year 
" the policy of Cecil substituted men of inferior rank 
" in the place of former magistrates ; that numerous 
" complaints were heard of their tyranny, peculation 
14 and rapacity ; and that a justice of peace was defi- 
" ned in parliament to be c an animal, who, for half a 
" dozen chickens would dispense with a dozen laws 
" nor shall we form a very exalted notion of the in- 
" tegrity of the higher courts, if we recollect the 
u judges were removable at the royal pleasure, and 
" that the queen herself was in the habit of receiving, 
" and permitting her favourites and ladies to receive, 
" bribes as the prices of her or their interference in 
" the suits of private individuals. 

" Besides the judicial tribunals, which remain to 
i: the present day, there were in the age of Elizabeth, 
" several other courts, the arbitrary constitution of 
" which were incompatible with the liberties of the 
u subject ; the court of high commission, for the cog-* 
" nizance of religious offences ; the court of star- 
" chamber, which inflicted the severest punishments 
" for that comprehensive and undefinable transgres- 
" sion, contempt of the royal authority ; and the 
" courts martial, for which the queen, from her hasty 
" and imperious, temper, manifested a strong predi- 
9t lection. Whatever could be supposed to have tho 



46 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



" remotest tendency to sedition, was held to subject 
" the offender to martial law ; the murder of a naval 
" or military officer, the importation of disloyal or 
" traiterous books, or the resort to one place of seve- 
ral persons who possessed not the visible means of 
;; subsistence. Thus in 1595, under the pretence that 
" the vagabonds of London were not to be restrained 
" by the usual punishments, she ordered Sir Thomas 
u Wyllford to receive from the magistrates the most 
u notorious offenders, and 'to execute them upon the 
M gallows according to the justice of martial law/ 

" Another and intolerable grievance was the dis- 
r * cretionary power assumed by the queen, of gratify - 
" ing her caprice or resentment by the restraint or 
M imprisonment of those who had given her offence. 
u Such persons were ordered daily to present them- 
" selves before the council till they should receive 
u further notice, or to confine themselves within their 
w own doors, or were given in custody to some other 
M person, or were thrown into a public prison. In 
" this state they remained, according to the royal 
" pleasure, for weeks, or months, or years, till they 
" could obtain their liberty by their submission, or 
u through the intercession of their friends, or with the 
" payment of a valuable composition. 

" The queen was not sparing of the blood of her 
" subjects. The statutes inflicting death for religious o- 
" pinions have been already noticed. In addition, many 
" new felonies and new treasons were created during 
" her reign ; and the ingenuity of the judges gave to 
" these enactments the most extensive application. In 
" 1595, some apprentices in London conspired to re- 
" lease their companions, who had been condemned 
" by the star-chamber to suffer punishment for a riot; 
" in 1597 a number of peasants in Oxfordshire assem- 
li bled to break down inclosures, and restore tillage ; 
" each of these offences, as it opposed the execution of 
" the law, was pronounced treason by the judges ; and 
" both the apprentices in London, and the men of Ox- 
fordshire, suffered the barbarous death of traitors. <* 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



47 



it is not my design to enter into a comprehensive 
detail of the cruelties committed during the reign of 
Elizabeth, but my object must fail if I pass them over, 
in mass, by mere assertion, without authority or par- 
ticulars. I already noticed the sufferings of the 
Puritans. I must here add, that the persecution of 
the Catholics was exceedingly severe, and highly im- 
politic, betraying in the wise and virtuous Elizabeth, 
the double appendage of a bad head and a bad heart. 
It does not appear that the Catholics had any inten- 
tion to disturb the queen in her regal authority, nor 
did they dispute her right to be head of her church 
with which they had no concern. The deposing pow- 
er, sometimes assumed by the popes, could have no 
positive influence on British Catholics, because it is 
not an article of Catholic faith ; 'and many are the 
instances of Catholics rejecting the counsel of popes, 
when not corresponding with their proper power. The 
pope did attempt, during this reign, to tamper with 
the English Catholics, but he failed in shaking Catho- 
lic loyalty, they effectually resisted his authority in 
this instance, they however continued steady to the 
orthodoxy of their own faith, equally unmoved by the 
overstretched authority of the head of the Catholic, as 
by the severe persecution of the head of the Protestant 
church. This fact should be sufficient to remove any 
apprehension (if such existed in the mind of the queen) 
that Catholic loyalty to a protestant government, was 
inconsistent with the closest adherence to the tenets 
of the Catholic creed; but persecution entered into 
the system of this queen's government, and religion 
was resorted to as a pretext, the fidelity of the Catho- 
lic subjects could not be brought fairly in question, 
and, considering the provocations to violate it, they 
may be said to have remained obstinately loyal. 
Writers were employed to defame them, ministers of 
the gospel inveighed against them from the pulpit, let- 
ters were written, and intercepted, perhaps by the 
writers, to prove meditated plots against the state, 
they were charged with a design to set the queen of 



48 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



Scots at liberty, and with the intention of "aiding every 
foreign Catholic prince or power hostile to England, 
or of whose inimical views any fear was entertained. 
Persecution towards the Catholic seemed to be ad- 
ministered as a preventive of guilt, and truly severe 
was the punishment which suspicion inflicted. 

Doctor Milnor in alluding to the state of the Catho - 
lics during the reign of Elizabeth, says " The conduct 
of the great body of the Catholics at that period was 
unrivalled for its fidelity. They saw a princess mount 
the throne, whose title was invalid by their church 
law, and w^hose hostile conduct in their regard they 
anticipated in idea, without offering the smallest re- 
sistance to it. They were then the majority of the 
nation. Almost all the ancient nobility were of their 
communion, and the ministry, as it was left by Mary, 
were all zealous Catholics. Nothing then would have 
been so easy for them as to have excluded Elizabeth 
from the succession, if they had copied the example 
which the Protestants set them at the death of Ed- 
ward VI. Nevertheless they concurred with firm 
hands, though with sorrowful hearts, in raising her to 
the throne, because it was her lawful right. They 
saw her begin her reign with violating her coronation 
oath, by changing the religion of the kingdom, which 
had been established in it almost 1000 years before, 
and which she had sworn to defend ; and even with 
enacting the penalty of death against the profession 
of it. They experienced pecuniary mulets and cor- 
poral punishments, which were multiplied and aggra- 
vated, year after year, without number or measure, in 
order to extirpate them from the land of their nativi- 
ty ; they found themselves, at every turn, accused 
and punished for pretended conspiracies ; and what 
was the most cruel circumstance of all, they perceived 
innumerable snares and the most scandalous arts of 
seduction and forgery employed by ministry, to draw 
as many as possible of their number into real ones. 
In the mean time they were told by the head of their 
church that they were no longer obliged to obey ; 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



49 



and they beheld the most powerful prince in Europe 
sending an armament, which passed for Invincible, to 
invade the realm, the success of which would at once 
have placed them above the heads of their persecu- 
tors. Yet, in spite of all this, they continued, priests 
and laity, when at liberty and when in prison, in their 
hiding places and under the gallows, to acknowledge 
the title of their unnatural sovereign, to pray for her 
prosperity, and to condemn all enterprises to secure 
their lives and the free exercise of their religion, at 
the expense of the public peace and of the lawful 
government*" 

The queen was said to have shown early proof of 
her discretion and acuteness in the selection of her 
ministers. In truth, they were the most profligate 
she could have chosen. The earl of Leicester, one 
of the handsomest men in England, owed to his per- 
sonal beauty, that he became a favorite and minister 
of the queen. The intercourse between him and the 
virgin sovereign, was so familiar as to produce ru- 
mour very unfavorable to the queen's honour ; it was 
also supposed that a marriage might take place which 
would elevate the earl to a throne, the countess ha- 
ving died suddenly, as was then well known, by means 
of his violent abuse of her. The queen it appears 
was too fond of her liberty: his marriage with the 
dowager countess of Essex lost him the affections of 
the queen, he however continued in the ministry. 
Leicester was a man of great ambition, extravagant 
in his personal expenses, indifferent to the means 
however censurable, by which they might be sup- 
plied, he was insincere, unprincipled, cruel, and 
treacherous. If he had religion, it was that of puri- 
tanism, but even in this he was more of a hypocrite 
than a zealot. 

Sir William Cecil, principal secretary of state 
served in various offices during the successive reigns, 
of Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth, he was a 
religious man, but so complying in his manners, that 
he concurred, in this respect, with the reigning mon- 

5 



50 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



arch'; whether six or sixty articles were the fashion 
Cecil was prompt to adopt the prevailing creed. He 
was patronised and raised to fortune by the earl of 
Somerset, the regent of the kingdom during the mi- 
nority of Edward the Sixth, on the decline of the for- 
tunes of this nobleman, the ungrateful Cecil joined 
the opposing party, and was chiefly instrumental in 
bringing his patron to the block. In his public con- 
duct at home, he was cruel and unrelenting ; in his 
official intercourse with foreign powers, he was un- 
steady and unprincipled : he was as wasteful of the 
blood of the subject, as he was faithless to all public 
engagements. 

Such were the characters who acted as the coun- 
sellors of the queen. From such what could be ex- 
pected but what did happen. 

The first primate after the queen's accession was 
Parker, a man rigid in exacting conformity to the es- 
tablished worship, and in punishing, by fine and de- 
privation, all the puritanical clergymen who attempt- 
ed to innovate any thing in the habit, ceremonies, or 
liturgy of the church. He died 1575 ; and was suc- 
ceeded by Grindal, who, as he himself was inclined 
to the new sect, was with great difficulty brought to 
execute the laws against them, or to punish the non- 
conforming clergy. He declined obeying the queen's 
orders for the suppression of prophesyings, or the as- 
semblies of the zealots in private houses, which she ap- 
prehended had become so many academies of fanati- 
cism ; and for this offence she had, by an order of 
the star chamber, sequestered him from archiepiscopal 
function, and confined him to his own house. Upon 
his death, which happened in 1583, she determined 
not to fall into the same error in her next choice ; and 
she named Whitgift, a zealous churchman, who had 
already signalized his pen in controversy, and who, 
having in vain attempted to convince the puritans by 
argument, was now resolved to open their eyes by 
power, and by the execution of penal statutes. He 
informed the queen that all the spiritual authority 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



51 



lodged in the prelates was insignificant without the 
sanction of the crown ; and as there was no ecclesi- 
astical commission at that time in force, he engaged 
her to issue a new one, more arbitrary than any of 
the former, and conveying more unlimited authority. 
She appointed forty -four commissioners, twelve of 
whom were ecclesiastics ; three commissioners made 
4 quorum ; the jurisdiction of the court extended over 
the whole kingdom, and over all orders of men ; and 
every circumstance of its authority, and all its methods 
of proceeding, were contrary to the clearest princi- 
ples of law and natural equity. The commissioners 
were empowered to visit and reform all errors, here- 
sies, schisms, in a word, to regulate all opinions, as 
well as to punish all breach of uniformit) in the ex- 
ercise of public worship. They were directed to 
make inquiry, not only by the legal methods of juries 
and witnesses, but by all other ways and means which 
they could devise, that is, by the rack, by torture, by 
inquisition, by imprisonment . Where they found rea- 
son to suspect any person, they might administer to 
him an oath, called ex officio, by which he was bound 
to answer all questions, and might thereby be obliged 
to accuse himself, or his most intimate friend. The 
fines which they levied were discretionary, and often 
occasioned the total ruin of the offender, the impris- 
onment, to which they condemned any delinquent, was 
limited by no rule but their own pleasure. They as- 
sumed a power of imposing on the clergy what new 
articles of subscription, and consequently of faith, as 
they thought proper. Though all other spiritual 
courts were subject, since the reformation, to inhibi- 
tions from the supreme courts of law, the ecclesiasti- 
cal commissions were exempted from that legal juris- 
diction, and were liable to no control. And the more 
to enlarge their authority, they were empowered to 
punish all incests, adulteries, fornications, all outra- 
ges, misbehaviours, and disorders in marriage : and 
the punishments which they might inflict, were ac- 
cording to their wisdom, conscience and discretion. 



52 



INQUISITION EXAMINED, 



fyi a word, this court was a real inquisition, at- 
tended with all the iniquities, as well as cruelties bf 
that tribunal. 

The penal laws enacted by the parliaments of 
Elizabeth would disgrace a Nero, even although one 
of them had never been put in execution, but, when 
it is known, that they were all put in execution, what 
can be said of this persecuting reign but that it was a 
bad one. A digest of the laws against popery pub- 
lished in 1791, by the late Simon Butler an Irish law- 
yer, presented to the reader a specimen of the most 
infamous legislation. 

It is now impossible to give the number, character, 
or rank of the sufferers under the laws of Elizabeth. 
In one account, now before me, it is stated, that up- 
wards of two hundred persons were put to death for 
professing the Catholic faith, during the last twenty 
years of the " golden days;" of these, one hundred 
and forty-two were priests. Ninety priests or Catho- 
lic lay persons died in prison, one hundred and five 
others were sent into exile. Of those who were whip- 
ped, fined, or stripped of their entire property, no ac- 
count pretends to state the number, one hundred 
Catholic gentlemen were confined at one time in the 
prisons of Lancaster and Yorkshire for the crime of 
- not attending service in the Protestant church. Many 
or most of these fell victims to the length and severity 
of their sufferings. A writer gives an account of 
twelve hundred Catholics who suffered in some shape 
on account of their religion, before the year 1588. 

The Rev. J. Sturges Protestant prebendary of 
Winchester, England, and Doctor Milner Catholic 
bishop of London, have written largely on the subject 
of British persecution, the latter proposes balancing 
the accounts, with a view of determining on which 
side the greatest sum of sufferings appears. To my 
present purpose, it matters not a fig how the account 
stands, Catholics have persecuted Protestants, and 
Protestants have persecuted Catholics, both had their 
bloody inquisitions. Are both ready to allow th&t 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



53 



;heir respective religions had nothing to do in it ? I 
trust they are so. The denial of this would infer that 
both religions are sanguinary and cruel. If so, it is 
time we get rid of both. Queen Mary burned the 
Protestants, and the Catholic prelates Gardner and 
Bonner stand charged with advising or concurring in 
the measures. Elizabeth did not use fire in the exe- 
cution of Catholics, that is did not apply it as Mary 
did, but she caused or permitted the sentence awar- 
ded to high treason to be literally executed on them, 
they were hung by the neck but not until dead, they 
were taken down while yet alive, their bowels were 
ripped out and burned before their face, their heads 
severed from their bodies, their bodies cut into quar- 
ters, and the heads and bodies disposed of as her ma- 
jesty pleased to direct. 

Torture was applied in this and other reigns to Catho- 
lic priests and laymen. The priest Campian under- 
went it several times, until nearly all his bones were 
dislocated, insomuch that he was unable to raise either 
hand, and having refused to conform to the establish- 
ed religion, was publicly executed. The protestant 
prelates, Home, Cooper, Neale, and Elmer have re- 
spectively been zealous persecutors, and the latter 
frequently attended to the infliction of torture on the 
prisoners in the tower. Cranmer had been also in- 
strumental in sending several persons to the stake, 
some of them for denying the real presence in the sa- 
crament, the very act of which he was himself, sub- 
sequently, if not previously, guilty. He signed the 
death warrant of Lord Thomas Seymour, during the 
infant reign of Edward, this was an act of which he 
might excuse himself, on account of his priestly func- 
tions, and which was a violation of them. Cranmer, 
in this instance, exceeded any act committed by the 
inquisition in Catholic countries. Whatever may 
have been the private wish, design, or feeling, of the 
Catholic ecclesiastics who acted as inquisitors, they 
had always too much respect for their own character^ 
to avow their having any participation in the senten- 



54 



fcNqUISITION EXAMINED. 



ces or execution of those who come under their cog- 
nizance. In fact, no power existed in the Inquisition 
to order any person to death, that was reserved, in 
form, if not in fact, for the civil authority. 

Among the many persons tortured at this time, was 
George Throgmorton. His papers were seized, and 
two letters of a treasonable nature were found among 
them. He denied any knowledge of them, he was 
tortured until, maddened by pain, he acknowledged 
the truth of whatever charge his tormentors choose 
to bring against him, and, among others, his having 
written these treasonable letters ; he died, protesting 
he had no knowledge of these papers, and that he be- 
lieved they were placed in his port-folio, after it was 
taken from him.* The earl of Leicester was known 
to have made out a list of persons who were to be 
prosecuted for heresy or treason. His sudden death, 
supposed by poison, saved the lives of the intended 
victims. f This monster, minister and counsellor of 
the queen, had but just got through the bloody work 
of despatching a large number of Catholics,, when he 
prepared this new list. 

Sir Francis Walsingham, another and the worst of 
Elizabeth^ ministers, was so violent in his hatred of 
Catholics, that he seldom failed when any of them 
w r ere brought before him, to insult them with the 
grossest language, and with accusations which he knew 
were false ; he has even been known to commit un- 
provoked and illegal assaults on them. This man was 



*The reader will probably recollect, that, through similar- 
means, the priest O'Coigley lost his life, a few years ago, at 
Maidstone, England. 

f During the anti-popish administration of the affairs of Ire- 
land, by the vice-king Lord Camden, towards the close of the 
i 3th century, a similar list of Catholic gentlemen was prepared 
at the castle of Dublin. A change in the British ministry, or 
rather a temporary suspension of British policy, led to the recal 
of lord Camden, who was succeeded by the Marquis Cornwallis. 
In this manner did those devoted Catholics escape the execution 
of that sentence passed on them in a private conclave, held at 
the king's castle in the City of Dublin, 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



55 



the chief manager of those letters and papers, which 
were, from time to time, made the presumed justifica- 
tion of the persecution, and finally destruction of the 
unfortunate Mary queen of Scots, 



James the First was a prince who possessed some 
good qualities, but they proved of no avail to Eng- 
land, his heart was not bad, but it became neutralized 
by the unsoundness or weakness of his head. He was 
born of Catholic parents, was early instilled with a 
belief in the orthodoxy of its tenets ; and as early 
impressions are generally lasting, he continued through 
life strongly biassed in favour of that creed. Had 
James been as firmly attached to Catholicity, as his 
mother Mary queen of Scots, he would possibly have 
disturbed his Protestant subjects, by another persecu- 
tion of them, this would certainly be the case had he 
fallen into the councils of any of those overheated or 
ambitious Catholics, who were too ready to sacrifice 
every duty of religion and humanity, to ruin their 
enemies, and exalt themselves, for James wanted the 
talent to distinguish what was right, and the strength 
of mind to resist what was wrong. The king took for 
his adviser, Robert Cecil earl of Salisbury son of Ce- 
cil the minister of Elizabeth, a portrait of whom has 
been given while treating of the government of the 
virgin queen. The son inherited all the evil propensi- 
ties of the father ; it was not necessary to improve 
on them, in order to make up the character of a bad 
man. Such was the inauspicious minister of the first 
James. This minister Cecil was initiated by his fa- 
ther, into all the mysteries of government, he hatch- 
ed conspiracies, forged letters, matured plots, and 
seemed a very adept in this kind of government. The 
most remarkable of these was the gun powder-plot, 
which he took care should be ascribed solely to the 
Catholics. James resigned his Catholic subjects to 
their enemies, eighteen priests and seven laymen were 
executed for their adherence to the Catholic religion^ 



56 



L\QUISITION EXAMINES. 



and more than a hundred of the clergy exiled, several 
other excesses against the Catholics rilled up the in- 
quisitorial cruelties of this reign. 



Charles the First the son and successor of James, 
next mounted the British throne. This reign was 
highly disastrous to the Catholics, and the more re- 
markable, as it was the ungrateful return for the most 
fervid and constant loyalty. The opposition which 
Charles experienced from his parliament, and the fa- 
tal result to him are pretty generally known. During 
the struggle which ended by the decapitation of the 
monarch, the Catholics were close adherents of his 
cause. During the civil war which raged in his do- 
minions, the Catholics poured out all their force and 
supplied every means in their power, in defence of 
the king, they fought his battles, they supplied his pe- 
cuniary wants, they bled, they died for him, they lite- 
rally drained their purses in defence of the throne. 
Yet this was not due by the Catholics to a prince who 
commenced his reign by the execution of Catholics, 
clergy and laity on account of their religion, nor did 
this persecution cease until, unable either to perse- 
cute, or to dispense with the aid of the Catholics, he 
called on them to take up arms in his defence, a sum- 
mons which they answered with a promptness which 
the reader may possibly suppose must have been ex- 
cited by some other passion than loyalty ; no otheiv 
however, can be ascribed to it. Charles was neither 
a wise king nor a good man, he inherited the head of 
his father but without his heart. The late Henry 
Grattan hearing a gentleman while in conversation, 
make use of the words " martyrdom of Charles the 
First," interrupted him, by observing u He a martyr I 
He w r as a martyr to his own crimes. w This is a perfect 
picture of Charles the First> in a single sentence, 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



07 



Oliver Cromwell, on the death of Charles, grasped 
the British sceptre, under the title of Protector. If 
Cromwell had any religion, he was a Puritan, his 
hypocritical cant became the theme of general con- 
versation. The Catholics had no just claim on his 
kindness, and, truly, the interregnum was to them a 
most afflicting scene of persecution. If there be an 
argument against my position, that the establishment 
of a bloody Inquisition is not a tenet of the christian 
religion, it is to be found in the practices and profes- 
sions of this dissembler; so far did he carry his pre- 
tended zeal for religion, that a verse from the psalms 
of David, was inscribed on his cannon. The conduct 
of an individual must not be ascribed to an entire sect. 
Oliver was no Catholic, and certainly the Puritans 
will not make themselves accountable for his absur- 
dities. 



The restoration ought to have brought peace if not 
favour, to the Catholics. One and all, they were for 
the restoration. After the battle of Worcester in 
which the hopes of Charles the Second were totally 
blasted, he sought safety in concealment. His confi- 
dence was placed in the Catholics, and they proved 
faithful, not only not discovering his places of con- 
cealment, but providing them for him. On one oc- 
casion, he was introduced by a Catholic priest, to a 
hiding hole, which the clergyman had provided for 
his own safety. The restoration was, however, a sig- 
nal for the persecution of Catholics. Charles had 
experienced the loyalty of his Catholic subjects in 
the most trying moments of his life, he experienced 
the protection and hospitality of foreign Catholics, 
w r hen he w r as a houseless exile : gratitude and policy 
ought at least to render him harmless to them, and 
that he was not so, is the more surprising, as he imbi- 
b a strong predilection for the Catholic faith ,du- 
ring his residence in France, and. as some will have 
it, before he went there, but he wanted that firmness 



58 



INQUISITION EXAMINE© 



necessary to the head of a nation. Left to himself he 
would incline to justice, but in the leadings strings of 
others, he suffered himself to be carried in every and 
any direction—" he never said a wrong thing, nor did 
a right one." 

No sooner had Charles the Second mounted the 
British throne, than plots and conspiracies were set on 
foot against the Catholics, and to these the restored 
monarch lent a too confiding ear. So unblushingly 
far, was calumny carried against the Catholics, that 
even the death of Charles the First was attributed to 
them. 

The most remarkable of the plots of this reign, was 
got up in a. very bungling manner by lord Shaftsbury. 
Credulity ran high when any thing was said prejudi- 
cial to the Catholic character, to this is owing per- 
haps, that any credit was given to the story of this 
plot, which is generally known as " Oates plot," ta- 
king its name from a perjured clergyman who gave 
evidence concerning it. The villanous conduct of 
Oates and his associates subsequently appeared in 
distinct characters, but not until the Catholics suffered 
the penalty of criminals. Lord Stafford was beheaded 
and several persons, priests as well as laymen, suffered 
the usual death of traitors, on this occasion, new 
penal laws were enacted against Catholics, and the 
laws in being, as well as those now enacted, put in- 
to rigourous force, several Catholics of all ranks 
and professions were imprisoned, fined, or put to 
death, for the mere exercise of their religion. As 
Charles the First coward like signed the death war- 
rant of his favourite though wicked minister Strafford, 
like manner did Charles the Second surrender to his 
enemies, the virtuous and innocent viscount Stafford. 
In nothing is the weakness of this monarch more re- 
markable than in his permitted persecution of Catho- 
lics, while he held at heart the same faith, and actual- 
ly died in the profession^of it» 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



0*> 



It is unnecessary to follow up this disgusting detail, 
By a particular reference to the succeeding reigns of 
British kings. The spirit and acts of persecution on 
account of religion continued from reign to reign. 
The late rejection of the Catholic emancipation bill, 
is in proof that it yet continues. The spirit in which 
the hateful laws were enforced, exists, but circum- 
stances have given it a milder aspect, and it may be 
hoped, that the necessity which imposes forbearance 
on the advocates of persecution, may grow until the 
system will fall for w T ant of power to uphold it. What 
this necessity is, ought not to remain entirely unnoti- 
ced although it requires but few words to do so, and 
allthough it may already have entered into the obser- 
vation ofevery individual concerned. 

In the first page of this work, I observed that the 
press may be compared to a sword, it can attack, it 
can defend, it can kill, it can save. The press has in 
no small degree taken the pjace of the sword every 
where, and rational argument is substituted for brutal 
force ; in such a contest, justice will prevail, and is 
prevailing. The reign of George the Third was that 
which gave relief to the Catholic, a prince, as preju- 
diced, as bigotted, and naturally as weak and as ob- 
stinate as any that preceded him, has the merit of 
liberality to his Catholic subjects. The truth is, the 
press, which from being like a grain of mustard seed, 
has grown into a tree, bore, in this reign, a cer- 
tain kind of forbidden fruit. The American colonists 
tasted largely of it, and Irish Catholic emancipation 
was literally sown and ripened in a foreign land, and 
at the distance of three thousand miles from Ireland. 
The tree of liberty is not indigenous, it is the boon of 
providence, a plant congenial to every soil, Lafayette 
carried a sprig of the tree to his native country, 
France ; it there produced another crop of Irish eman- 
cipation, and, had the councils of Fayette prevailed, 
the world had ere now been free, but nipping ambi- 
tion injured the budding blossom, and France herself 
lost sight of liberty, it blazed on the land, but a flit- 



60 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



ting cloud obscured it, faction and division distracted 
and weakened the national energies, and Bonaparte 
stepped in to the relief of France, but yet to the re- 
straint of liberty. There are disorders which require 
desperate remedies, such was that which led to the 
entry and exit of Bonaparte ; some of the best men in 
France hailed him, even while he grasped the throne, 
as the only man who could save the nation, from the 
danger of popular excesses; the purest patriotism 
stepped forward in his behalf, as the only expedient 
to keep from France the melancholy prospect, that 
the country might again fall a prey to a restored 
Bourbon. Louis the eighteenth did however re- 
mount the French throne, the people of France are 
now suffering the penalty of revolutionary indiscre- 
tions, and the Catholics of Ireland must wait in chains, 
until another popular movement, at home or abroad, 
will again wring from their oppressor one more con- 
cession. 

Bonaparte was a tyrant, but of a new kind ; for, 
compared with his cotemporary kings, he was even 
an apostle of liberty ; he mistook a false glory for his 
country's good, and in search of renown, he travelled 
out of the road to equal rights, he w^as how ever gross- 
ly libelled, even by those who admired what he pro- 
fessed to support, monarchy. Bonaparte established 
liberty of conscience w herever his arms could prevail, 
he broke down the Inquisition in Spain, he gave lib- 
erty of conscience, protection, and even favour, to the 
persecuted Protestants of France. It is not true that 
he adopted a variety of creeds, he did not become a 
proseylite to any, nor was he a hypocrite in any, un- 
less possibly in that one which he openly professed, 
and in which he was educated. He was disposed to 
allow to all as much liberty of conscience, as was, in 
his mind, compatible with the security of the civil 
government : he would admit as much republicanism 
as could breathe the same air with the king. A re- 
publican kmg is not an absolute paradox : Bonaparte 
would be a king, and would, perhaps, rather destroy 



INQUISITION EXAMINE!). 



61 



liberty, than be deprived of his crown, it was his wish 
however, to reign over a happy, and, as nearly as 
was consistent with his ambition, over a free people. 
He gave to France, the admirable " Code Napoleon," 
the old aristocracy suffered by his administration, but 
the helot-peasantry were raised into a proud and re- 
spectable yeomanry. He ruined hundreds, but he 
left France better than he found it. 



That the protection of religion w r as but the pretext 
for committing the shameful and sinful enormities of 
the civil governments of Europe, is a fact which might 
be collected from a very superficial acquaintance with 
history ; that religion could have no hand in it is writ- 
ten in almost every line of holy writ. British history 
abundantly maintains my position. Were it necessa- 
ry to go into the utmost minutiae to support a plain 
truth, I would spread before my reader, the entire 
history of Ireland,* both before and since its unhappy 
connexion with Britain : the former would show, that 
Christianity in the early ages of it had no inquisitions, 
with a view to destroy men for their religious opin- 
ions ; the latter period would satisfy every reader, 
that persecution for conscience sake, is a modern as 
it is a vicious institution. Although I cannot here 
enter into a detailed history of that country, the birth 
place of so large a portion of the white natives of the 
United States of America, yet it seems necessary to 
rny subject, that I take a rapid glance at it. 



*A history of Ireland written by a suitable person, in this 
country, would be a valuable acquisition to literature, the states- 
man and politic ran would find in it a useful lesson ; such a his- 
tory couid not fail to throw great light on my subject, but it 
would swell this little work, beyond the limits to which, for va- 
rious reasons, I must confine myself. Mr. Mathew Carey of 
Philadelphia, has done much towards drawing Ireland's picture. 
The author of " Viudiciac Kibernicae," cannot employ his pencil 
more usefully to the puolic, or more honourably to himself, then 
than by continuing- his labours on a portrait so well suited to his 
industry, his talents, and his patriotism. 

6 



62 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



The injustice of Britain towards the people of Ire- 
land, was intended to bear retrospectively on that na- 
tion, by destroying all records of its history, and sub- 
stituting fiction and falsehood. Enough however has 
survived the intended wreck of its name, to show, be- 
yond doubt 5 that Ireland was a land of civilization and 
of letters, of science and the arts, long before Eng- 
land was known in any similar degree, nay, before the 
time when Caesar characterized the Britons, as "fa- 
ros inhospitesque." It is not my intention to aver 
that the British were as thus described, I am disposed 
to make every allowance for the circumstance, that 
the authority is that of an enemy, but 1 must say, that 
after civilization had far progressed, and even at this 
day, the people of Ireland might, in reference to the 
treatment they did and do receive, apply Caesar's 
words, to the British government, and in too great a 
degree, to the British people. 

The Scottish* inhabitants of Ireland, were the de- 
scendants of the ancient Iberian Spaniards. The 
Spaniards by their constant intercourse with the Phoe- 
nicians got an early knowledge of letters. The Egyp- 
tians also a learned people, made several incursions 
into Spain, the disturbed state of which induced the 
Iberian Spaniards, who had settled in the North of 
Spain, to emigrate. This being resolved on, one of 
their number, named Ithy, was sent at the head of an 
exploring party in search of a more convenient land, 
these Spaniards reached Ireland, where, in a conflict 
with the inhabitants, Ithy was slain : his corpse was 
carried to Spain by his associates. This act of bar- 
barity so incensed the Spaniards, that the thoughts of 
foreign settlement gave way to revenge. It was re- 
solved to make war on the murderers of Ithy, Short- 
ly after, one hundred and twenty ships arrived from 
Spain on the coast of Ireland, with troops, under the 

* The reader must not be led into the belief that the name of 
u Scotia," or the designation of " Scottish," is borrowed from 
Scotland, the fact is that North Britain got the name of " Sco- 
tia minor," from Ireland the " Scotia major" or " antiqua.** 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



63 



command of the sons of Milesius. The contest was 
of short duration, the barbarous inhabitants submitted : 
some of them were received into the favour of the 
conquerors, and, benefitting by their instruction, 
became an enlightened people. The new settlers 
brought with them the use of letters which they con- 
tinued to cultivate with great assiduity and success. 

The Milesian Irish, as they have been designated 
after their migration, were a martial, humane, brave, 
and hospitable people. The Irish government as es- 
tablished by them, was monarchiai, but the monarch 
was elective out of the Milesian family, a popular coun- 
cil kept a restraining hand over any ambitious views 
that might be discovered in the monarch, a senatorial 
order, was instituted as a check on both, so that the 
extremes of regal power, and of pdpular excesses, 
might be guarded against, that the one might not be- 
come tyranic, or the other licentious. The three or- 
ders were elective, the sessions and the election of 
deputies were triennal. The pretension to arrive at 
the crown must be grounded on a name established 
by tried talents, superior virtue, abilities, military 
courage, and a knowledge of the laws and constitu- 
tion. Hereditary orders of government were un- 
known, and the spirit of the time was decidedly op- 
posed to their introduction. That learning should 
rapidly advance, as it did, must have been the case, 
where ignorance was never elevated to rank, and 
where merit was the surest passport to office. The 
Irish gave strong evidences of submissiveness and of 
obstinacy, in their ready and almost general conver- 
sion to Christianity in the fifth century, and their ad- 
herence to it, as then taught, during the succeeding 
period of thirteen hundred years even to this time ; 
in both instances, I think it may be said, they discov- 
ered an inherent virtue of the highest order. 

Education in Ireland was of the most refined order 
then known in the world, they brought a knowledge 
of letters from Spain, to which place they were con- 
veyed from the most learned nations extant : while 



64 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



their neighbours were enveloped in barbarous igno- 
rance, or had but a scarcely dawning light, the peo- 
ple of Ireland reaped the fruits of a highly polished 
education. The Irish schools and seminaries became 
objects of great interest, whether considered in refe- 
rence to their number, their size, their many students, 
their courses of study, or the hospitality with which 
foreigners, who resorted to them, were received and 
instructed without charge. In short Ireland became 
the freeschool of Europe, and particularly of the 
neighbouring island of Britain. The return which the 
latter made for the important favours thus conferred, 
may be gleaned from the history of both countries, for 
the last seven centuries. 

A writer on the ancient history of Ireland to whom 
I am principally indebted for the observations re- 
specting that island, which I have here endeavoured 
to compress, thus expresses himself. " A subject like 
this I am now upon, is very well worth the pafns of 
an able writer ; few subjects deserve to be better 
known, since we so rarely meet with the history of a 
free and learned people, and find so little instruction 
in that of any other. Their constitution, as we have 
observed, was founded originally upon democratic 
principles ; and on the proper equilibrium of the 
prime contending orders depended the safety and due 
oeconomy of the whole system. In the hands of able 
and uncorrupt governors, this scheme was practica- 
ble enough, notwithstanding the difficulties we have 
enumerated. The christian religion brought it addi- 
tional and great strength. It instructed the people in 
the true measures of obedience, and the governors in 
the true use of their authority ; it renewed and con- 
solidated the principles of virtue, and consequently 
those of the constitution ; when it attempts the reverse 
of this, it is not christian, but occasional and factions 
religion. The popes and missionaries of that age made 
no attempts upon civil liberty, whatever those of later 
times might have essayed. Their kingdom was not 
of this worldj and they sought nothing but the peace 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



65 



and salvation of those to whom it belonged. They 
conducted this great work b\ t ie means of persuasion 
and good example, the only manner in which it can 
be conducted ; they should frustrate the ends of true 
religion, and deviate from the precepts of their divine 
master, had they conducted it in any other. It were 
to be wished that this was still the case, without tem- 
poral rewards to allure, incapacities to corrupt, and 
inquisitions to torture men into the true religion ; and 
until this is the case, until government desists from 
the encouragement of apostacy, and consequently of 
every kind of hypocritical immorality, it will be bur- 
lesque to talk of liberty in the sense that the wise an- 
cients understood it : on any other terms, sacred 
freedom is, in fact, but a mere monopoly, and the 
property only of those, who are compelled to come 
in." And again, says the same historian. " In those 
days, neither occasional nor local Christianity was a 
standard to determine how far men (men obedient to 
the established government) ought to enjoy or forfeit 
natural rights ; they were not punished in proportion 
to the supposed evils of their ecclesiastic systems, but 
in proportion to their real transgressions against that 
peace of government which true Christianity recom- 
mends. The religion of the first missionaries was a 
summary of union and harmony ; its principles were 
worthy its divine original, and taught mankind to love 
and succour, not to divide, hate and destroy, one 
another. This is, in brief, an idea of it; but if more 
were necessary, the conduct of the clergy, and the 
extraordinary learning and sanctity of our monastic 
orders, would finish the picture : these persons were 
true apostolic teachers ; and although, as before ob- 
served, the ecclesiastics were admitted to a share in 
the legislative government ; yet their power never 
amounted to any thing near that clerical tyranny and 
unexampled prostitution so much complained of, in 
these latter times. I do not detract from the exam- 
plary and meritorious conduct of those ancient and 
pious teachers of Christiani ty : but if ever, (at any one 



66 



INQUISITION EXAMINED-- 



particular time) they attempted to get a share of 
power in Ireland, incompatible with liberty, they cer- 
tainly failed in the acquisition. They kept them- 
selves, or they were kept, within their proper eccle- 
siastic departments ; nor would this knowing and free 
people admit them to be the tramplers, any more than 
they were the creatures, of the civil power. We can 
hardly be brought to think, but that the austerities, 
mortifications and edifying charity of those first ages 
of the Scottish church, were a sufficient security a* 
gainst all ecclesiastic invasions. Where gospel-au- 
thority alone is exercised, little is to be feared from 
the clergy ; they do the state the greatest service, and 
they merit the higest reverence from it : but when 
they turn candidates for the dignities, that is, the 
pageantry, distinctions and opulence of their profes- 
sions ; when they renounce the world, to grasp at it 
the more surely ; when they pander for preferment, at 
the expense of decency, integrity and Christianity ; 
when, in short, they lead the most luxurious h\es, 
and proudly cushion themselves up from the labours 
of any true pastoral duty; then, and then only, it may 
be dreaded, that their share in the legislature of their 
country may become unconstitutional ; and conse- 
quently their conduct as dangerous to liberty, as to 
Christianity. That all this was not the case in Ire- 
land; and that the spiritual had no collision with the 
civil power, we are assured, not only by our native 
historians, but by the consent of foreign writers, who 
singularly celebrate the ancient Scots for the reten- 
tion of their religion, upon the true principles and 
firm foundation of primitive Christianity. 55 

Will those who cry out that the establishment of 
the Inquisition in Catholic countries, was conforma- 
ble to a tenet of that religion, continue to say so, in 
the face of this evidence, that the early missionaries 
made no pretensions to such powers, and hinted at no 
such doctrine ? Had not ambition, taking advantage 
of the factious disputes which weakened or suspen- 
ded the energies of Ireland^ \n the twelfth century* 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



6'7 



introduced a political plague, that island, the people 
of which better understood what constituted liberty, 
and enjoyed it longer, than any other cotcmporaneous 
nation, would never have experienced the inquisito- 
rial laws, which has, and now, there regulates reli- 
gion by sanguinary inflictions, and enforces its obser- 
vance by tire and sword. The many unroofed monu- 
ments of piety and letters, the ivyed walls of which 
withstand the ravages of time, are in themselves a 
melancholy history of the gothic vandalism with which 
Ireland had been visited, and which continues an en- 
feebling incubus to oppress and ruin it. 

The obstinacy with which the Irish people adhered 
to the divine religion as revealed to them, is not more 
remarkable than that with which they retained their 
language, the same they brought with them from Spain, 
one thousand years before the christian era, and 
those customs which are in themselves a strong proof 
of their antiquity, and the descent of the inhabitants, 
also that peculiar characteristic which distinguish- 
es them as a people different from any other inhabit- 
ing the north of Europe. There are, at this day, many 
of the unmixed descendants of the original emigrants, 
who speak the Irish language with a purity which is 
extraordinary, and understand no other ; the consti- 
tutional love of letters which was the ornament of 
their free ancestors, continues unabated in their en- 
slaved children : it is not, at least was not uncommon 
some years ago, to see the barefooted youth of the 
south and west of Ireland, capable of addressing their 
booted masters, in two languages, to which the up- 
start foreigners were often strangers, pure latin, and 
Irish not less pure. Those of the Milesian Irish whose 
fortunes enabled them to acquire the highest degree of 
the smuggled education of the country, have wonder- 
fully excelled the privileged scholars, and, in their 
frequent visits to, and residences in foreign countries, 
have signalized themselves, so as to draw forth th£ 
respect and admiration of every stranger, on whom 
the English Enemy was unable to engraft a hatred for 



68 



INQUISITION" EXAMINE ft. 



the Irish character. The Irish gentleman and schoia; 
whether in the field, the pulpit, or the forum, whether 
in the presence of kings, or in the social circle of his 
equals, retains and displays the great characteristics 
of his ancestors, he is brave, he is eloquent, he is pa- 
triotic, he is noble, and unawed by any presumed su- 
periority, he is quick of apprehension, full of wit and 
expedient. The poorer man displays his share of the 
national trait. Long grinding persecution has in some 
instances nearly annihilated the proper character ; 
but even these, while they but show what long contin- 
ued slavery may effect, are objects more of sympathy 
than of contempt. The poor oppressed Irishman, 
bounding on his native hills, or engaged in the gam- 
bols of his native vallies, often feels a happiness, to 
which the oppressor is a stranger, and it is in these 
moments he displays those qualities which distin- 
guished his ancestors, now they appear hereditarily 
inherent, and indelible. The national hospitality, 
never dead, assumes a renovated vigor, when, forget- 
ting his sorrows, he enjoys a momentary although but 
an ideal gleam of freedom. Driven from their coun- 
try, Irishmen have not failed to signalize themselves 
in foreign lands, by acts of splendid bravery and good ' 
faith. British influence wherever it can reach (and 
may it not tarry in America) will overshadow and ob- 
scure those traits, and, urged on by envy and malice, 
will defame and bring into contempt a people who 
deserve a better treatment. The Irish character 
\*ill outlive this unprovoked enmity, future genera- 
tions will do justice to Irish merit, and admire the 
properties which constituted the nation's pride, " fu- 
ture history will sprinkle its fairest flowers over them, 
and posterity will not cease to admire what they will 
reckon it their greatest glory to imitate." 

This allusion to Irish history and character may 
seem impertinent to my subject, the exile in America 
would surely pardon the digression, if it be one, the 
American will, on reflection, see that it is not abso- 
lutely inapplicable, that a useful lesson maybe drawn 



INQUISITION EXAMINED, 



69 



from a view of man prosperous and happy in the en- 
joyment of rational liberty, wretched and degraded 
when deprived of it ; that liberty finding security in 
the purity of religion, and never in such imminent 
danger as when worldly ambition regulates the bible 
by civil decrees. We have already seen that the 
early church missionaries propagated their doctrine 
in Ireland by mild persuasion ; the Irish people were 
then free. An inroad was indeed made on that free- 
dom w hile the oppressor and oppressed yet kneeled 
at the one altar, but the violence of persecution never 
received its most woeful sharpness, until religious 
zeal, real or pretended, mistaken or assumed, dipped 
its hands in blood, substituted compulsion for persua- 
sion, and elementary fire for the usual arms of the 
church, remonstrance, and. as the last resort, excom- 
munication. 

We have seen what continued persecution reigned 
in England under the pretext of promoting religion, 
what inquisitions were instituted, what tortures were 
resorted to, what fines, forfeitures, banishments, im- 
prisonments, and barbarous executions ! but these 
were comparatively trifles ; Ireland was the theatre 
on w r hich persecution raged on the great scale, where 
Brkish persecution scowled throughout the land, 
where fire and faggot ruined and had nigh extermina- 
ted the inhabitants, where priest turned soldier, and 
soldier turned devil, where religion became frenzy, 
and humanity canibalism, until artificial savagery im- 
proved upon the worst qualities of nature, until heav- 
en blushed as it looked on the pulpit and the preacher. 

In England, the Protestant it is true persecuted the 
Protestant as he did the Catholic, but there the sec- 
tarian found relief in conformity, there the unreform- 
ed Catholics were not many, persecution was limited 
by the fewness of the obstinate, it was often arrested 
for w r ant of objects on which to prey. Not so with 
Ireland. The Irish Catholic was steady to his faith, 
and dearly he paid for his nonconformity. His lands 
were seized and given to murdering soldiers and fo* 



70 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



reign harpies, strange vultures swallowed his proj 
ty and plundered his substance, the seeds of unnatu- 
ral disunion were sown on the land, where a Saint 
Patrick found materials so easily moulded into the 
most exalted virtue, the religion he so successfully 
planted was proscribed, and its observance forbidden, 
legislation assumed the most fiendlike aspect, morali- 
ty was torn up by the root, and as far as possible, ex- 
tinguished ; to be a " mere Irishman" was a sin to be 
washed away only in the blood of the victim. The 
wealth of the land was wasted on the demoralization 
of the inhabitants, robbery was sanctioned by law, 
filial disobedience encouraged, apostacy rewarded, 
and perjury made the road to honours and to riches. 
The whole face of things was changed, and changed 
for the worse. Such were the consequences of British 
rule in Ireland ; and these arose from an attempt to 
compel the inhabitants to adopt a religion delivered 
to them in a strange tongue, and by a stranger whose 
conduct was marked by a violence and ferocity, not 
calculated to conciliate, but rather to exasperate. 

I may possibly, hereafter, undertake such a view of 
Irish events as may enable the American, at a small 
expense, to learn something of the history of a nation 
so cruelly aspersed, and the true character of a peo- 
ple so shamefully libelled by prejudiced and hired 
writers. Mr. Carey's Vindieiae Hfbernicae is full and 
conclusive on this, and I cannot in justice to that en- 
lightened Irishman, do less than invite the public to 
give his work a general and attentive perusal. So far 
as I shall further treat the subject at present, and I 
must be very concise and incomplete, I will draw for 
my information, principally on Mr. Carey's work. 
Mr. Carey prepares his readers by the following in- 
troductory observations. 

6w The history of Ireland is almost one solid mass 
of falsehood and imposture, erected, particularly du- 
ring the seventeenth century, on the basis of fraud 
and perjury ; fraud and perjury so obvious, so stupid 
and so flagitious, that, to the most superficial observer, 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



71 



*i must be a subject of inexpressible astonishment how 
it ever gained currency." 

" Nevertheless from such foul and polluted sources 
alone, the knowledge of that history is derived by 
nine tenths of those who have condescended to study 
it : and however extravagant it may appear, it is ne- 
vertheless a serious truth, that a large portion even of 
those who pride themselves on their literary acquire- 
ments, are almost as ignorant of the affairs of Ireland, 
from the twelfth to the eighteenth century, as of those 
of Arabia or Japan." 

" The terrific tales that are recorded of the events 
of the civil war in 1641, have sowed and still continue 
to sow a copious seed of the most vulgar and ranco- 
rous prejudices in the mind of man against his fellow 
man, which have sprouted forth with most pernicious 
luxuriance, and soured in the breasts of many the 
sweet milk of human kindness towards those with 
whom they are in daily habits of association." 

" Many of those prejudices have been transplanted 
from their native soil by emigrants* and have taken 
root in this country, (the United States of America,) 
notwithstanding the general liberality of the age. It 
is true, however, that their range is confined, and 
their influence inconsiderable. Nevertheless, the er- 
roneous impressions respecting Irish affairs are uni- 
versal here, from the corrupt sources whence her* 
heart rending story is derived." 

Robbery, and not religious zeal, was the propelling 
motive of the oppressors of Ireland. To afford a pre- 
text for fraud and plunder, every device was set on 
foot to instigate rebellion, or induce individuals to 
commit treason, no matter how ill, or imperfectly they 
succeeded, no matter how confined the rebellion, how- 
few the criminals, it }et justified the most extensive 

* It is true, as stated by Mr. Carey, that prejudices have been 
carried across the Atlantic, by emigrants. But the whole tru h 
would be better told, were it added, that the British govej □ merit 
and British emissaries had a large share in the attempt of poison- 
ii'jg- the minds of the Americans. 



72 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



confiscations, the most rapacious robberies : nay, al- 
though the plan had altogether failed, although no re- 
bellion could be excited, although no treason had 
been committed, yet some professional perjurer, or 
some secret inquiry and sealed report, furnished what 
could not be otherwise procured. Ireland is in extent 
about two-thirds of the size of the state of New-York, 
or Pennsylvania, the confiscations of landed property 
amounted nearly to the entire and would appear to 
have exceeded it, this however arose from some parts 
being more than once confiscated. The confiscated 
estates of the Earl of Desmond were nearly 600,000 
acres ; those of Tyrone and Tyrconnel about 500,000 ; 
the confiscations, after the subjugation of Ireland by 
Cromwell, were above 6,000,000 acres, and those af- 
ter the final defeat of king James' adherents, probab- 
ly, 1,500,000.* 

Out of those perjuries, arose a London company 
with a capital of one million of pounds, or such part 
thereof as would be necessary, to procure the confis- 
cation of ten millions of the lands held by the Catho- 
lics of Ireland. The English parliament saw the 
reasonableness of the proposal, and enacted a law ac- 
cordingly, reserving to the crown a perpetual rent, 

The attainder of individuals was a very covenient 
mode of coming at property. 

" The most usual means of accomplishing the nefa- 
rious purpose of confiscating estates in Ireland, were : 

6< 1. By implicating the nobility and gentry in some 
fictitious plot, and citing them to appear before the 
deputies : if they appeared, seizing them, and trying 
them by martial lau\ or by a jury packed for the pur- 
pose, or acting under the dread of corporal or other 
punishment, if their verdict did not quadrate with the 
views of the government. 

" 2. If they did not appear, as was often the case, 
in consequence of the perfidy so frequently expe- 
rienced by those who ventured to comply with the 



* Carey. 



L\qUlSlTION EXAMINED. 



73 



requisition, regarding their non-appearance as a con- 
fession of guilt, declaring them traitors, and overturn- 
ing and seizing their territories. 

" Recourse in both cases, was generally had to acts 
of attainder for the confiscation of the estates of the 
parties, 

" An act of attainder is a tremendous instrument 
of persecution and destruction.* There are few con- 
ceivable cases, in which it can be used, without mani- 
fest injustice and oppression. As it is enacted by the 
highest authority in the state, there lies no appeal a- 
gainst its overwhelming operation, however atrocious- 
ly wicked. 

Under the pretext of civilizing the Irish Catholics, 
foreign barbarians preyed on their property : to re- 
duce the "savages to order and subjection," they 
were driven from their comfortable abodes and fair 
lands, to " nestle in filthy cottages" on those scanty 
portions of unprofitable lands which were assigned 
them. This nestling in filthy cottages, which, if true, 
is so only in reference to their state after they were 
despoiled of their lands, is, by the British historian, 
made the motive and justification for the despoiling. 
With such humane views, king James robbed his 
Irish subjects in King's and Queen's counties, in Lei- 
trim, Longford, and Westmeath, of their rightful es- 
tates, to the amount of three hundred and eighty-two 
thousand acres. He had already plundered the in- 
habitants of Ulster of their property, and sent the 
proprietors into ruin and the utmost distress. 

" To bring the matter home to an American rea- 
der, let us suppose a descendant of William Penn, 
settled on the rich lands in Lancaster, Chester, or 
Delaware county, (Pennsylvania) and owning one 
thousand acres, worth one hundred dollars per acre,. 



*The reader will bear in mind that all this is an inquisitorial 
system for the suppression of popery and heresy, all done under 
the pretext that it was for the " glory of God." 

? 



74 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



expelled from thence because he built no houses, nor 
planted orchards or gardens, banished to some of the 
barren lands in Northumberland or Lycoming, re- 
ceiving in lieu of his paternal estate, two hundred 
and fifty acres, scarcely worth two dollars per acre, 
thus receiving five hundred dollars as an equivalent 
for a hundred thousand. This is a fair view of the 
equitable doctrine of equivalents, as studied and car- 
ried into practice by those upright agents of the pious 
James."* 

Catholics were disqualified by law from purchasing, 
or even holding by lease, any of the confiscated lands. 

Another species of robbery arose from fines. It 
was required of every subject to attend divine wor- 
ship in the established church, on every Sunday, un- 
der a penalty, which gave employ, in the collection of 
it, to the Protestant collectors, during the other six 
days of the week. The aggregate amount of the 
fines was enormous, and sufficient in itself to beggar 
many of the poorer class of the community, and was 
oppressive and vexatious to the wealthy. 

A Catholic could not own a horse of a greater 
value than five pounds : a Protestant might seize any 
horse found in the possession of a Catholic, on paying 
for the same the utmost value fixed by the law, five 
pounds. I have heard it said, but as I do not now 
recollect the source of my information, I will not 
vouch for its authenticity, that a Protestant having 
seized a horse of great value and tendered five pounds 
which was refused, he carried off the animal, and was 
prosecuted as a robber, because he also carried off 
the saddle and bridle : the robber escaped the punish- 
ment due to his crime,, being acquitted by a packed 
jury. As the law stood, a Catholic could not be im- 
pannelled on a jury to decide any matter in dispute 
between a Catholic and Protestant. 

A Sheriff is a very important officer, he having the 
impannelling of juries. In Ireland, the Sheriffs are 



* Carey. 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



75 



appointed by the king, and mast not be Catholics. 
The insecurity which this creates, whenever a Catho- 
lic is a party in a civil suit, is evident. The danger 
to Protestant and Catholic in criminal prosecutions, 
where the king is always a party, and often a vindic- 
tive one, is equally evident. The property of the 
Catholic was in every form so prostrate at the foot 
of the throne, and so much within the grasp of the 
king, that the Catholic could not be said to hold it 
except by royal sufferance, it was mercy that permit- 
ted him to exist— this is not fiction nor exaggeration. 
A judge seated on an Irish bench, has been heard to 
say, that the law did not recognize the existence of a 
Catholic, and that he should not complain while per- 
mitted to breathe. A loyal sheriff created for the 
purpose of packmg a loyal jury, was an effectual 
mode of dispossessing the Catholic of his property. 
The jury which would dare to be just, would be pun- 
ished by fime a;id imprisonment. So much for the 
insecurity of property under the inquisitorial laws for 
the suppression of popery in Ireland. 

In order to provide effectually for the continued 
enslavement of the Irish Catholic, it was necessary to 
put a stop to the progress of education, to engraft ig- 
norance on the nation. The laws were apparently 
very effectual for this purpose, but such has always 
been, and such continues to this day, the desire of 
the Irish native to acquire literary information, that, 
at every hazard, he sought it where he could find it, 
in the munificence of foreign monarchs, in the hum- 
ble unlicensed hedge-school of his own country, in 
the hiding places, where proscribed piety raised the 
soul to God, and initiated the pupil into the use of 
the alphabet, where the humble priest, unobserved 
by the inquisitors, performed the ceremonies of the 
altar on Sunday, and taught religion, morality, and 
the use of letters to u little ones"* during the other 



* How differently were the " little ones" of Ireland treated by 
&e bloody invaders. Sir Charles Coote (a name well remem- 



76 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



days of the week. Some of the most learned of men 
received their earliest instruction in these humble 
seminaries, but even these were not always protected 
by their lowliness, their tutors became objects of di- 
rect persecution, and the infant learners were made 
to feel the weight of the law. 

" If any papist (said the law) shall publicly teach 
school, or instruct youth in learning in any private 
house, or shall be entertained to instruct youth, as 
usher or assistant to any Protestant school-master, he 
shall be esteemed a Popish regular clergyman, and 
prosecuted as such, and shall incur such penalties and 
forfeitures as any Popish regular convict is liable 
unto." 

We will, just now, see what these penalties were, 
" Draco, barbarous and cruel as he was, in his san- 
guinary co'ie, which punished all crimes with death, 
has never been accused of punishing any thing but 
crimes. But the worse than Draconian Irish legisla- 
ture denounced banishment, and, in case of return, 
death, against any Catholic guilty of the offence of 
teaching school, instructing children in learning, in a 
private house, or officiating as usher to a Protestant 
school master.' 5 * 

Each and every person who encouraged or advised 
any youth to pass beyond sea for the purpose of edu- 
cation, as well as the person who contributed to his 
support while abroad, were punishable for the offence^ 



bered and justly detested in Ireland) gave orders to his soldiers 
not to spare the smallest child. This horrid principle too gene- 
rally prevailed, the little ones suffered in the indiscriminate 
massacres which took place at Drogheda, Wexford, and in ma- 
ny other places. On one occasion, three children were taken 
from a pregnant woman, whose womb was ripped open for the 
purpose ; the little ones were stuck on spears, and thus exposed 
to public view. Many an innocent babe in like manner perish- 
ed, the ferocious loyalists punished by anticipation, those who, 
if left to live, might possibly become rebels. " Nits (said the 
murderers) will be lice." Does not this out herod Herod ? 
* Carey, 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



77 



and the personal and real estate of such youth, or to 
which he might become heir or owner, was to be for- 
feited to the king. His absence was prima facie evi- 
dence that he was so, for the purpose of education, 
and it rested with him to prove the negative. He 
was liable to punishment for acquiring such foreign, 
education, should the same be proven after his return, 
although he had been sent abroad while j r et under 
the tender age of seven years, and although he had 
attained the age of seventy before his return. 

What a melancholy reverse for Ireland, and how 
barbarous the policy, how inglorious the conduct 
which would destroy literature and its legimate offs- 
pring liberty, to raise on its tomb, a superstructure of 
immorality, peculation, pride, and slavery. Ireland 
which Dean Prideaux said had been the prime seat of 
learning to all Christendom, was now to become the 
very seat of ignorance, at least so far as the power of 
the invader could so make it. That 44 insula sancto- 
rum et doctorum" in which 44 true learning and true 
religion flourished together," was to be the home of 
the savage, (if bad laws could succeed in rendering 
men savage,) it was to become the domicii of the 
hypocrite, the perjurer, and the blasphemer, and 
the nursery of crime and apostacy, if the law which 
permitted the one and rewarded the other, could give 
growth to these first fruits of the attempts to civilize 
the people of Ireland. What a contrast Ireland as 
she was, presents, when compared with what she be- 
came under the British government. For about fif- 
teen hundred years, from the Milesian migration to 
the introduction of revealed religion, the Irishpeo- 
ple were ardent and successful cultivators of let- 
ters and the arts, they were a polished, martial, brave, 
and generous people, practiced in eloquence and 
lovers of poetry and music, they were, more than any 
other people in Europe lovers of liberty, and they 
understood it better than any of their neighbours. 
The spirit of the Gospel, which was conveyed to Ire- 

7* 



78 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



land later than it had been to the neighbouring island 
of Britain, tended to give a new impulse to the happy 
genius of the people. 

" That doctrine took place in Ireland in the fifth 
century ; and none succeeded more in the spreading 
of it than Patrick, a native of Britain, and a Roman 
Catholic Missionary ; he and his disciples in a few years 
converted the w r hole nation : so rapid a progress was 
perhaps, never known in any other land : and if it be 
true, as undoubtedly it is, that Christianity got the 
least opposition from the learned and polite nations, 
its great success in Ireland will, on that score, be the 
less to be wondered at. Heathen darkness vanished 
at the dawn of truth enlightened by the virtues of its 
preachers. The country w r as filled with bishops, 
priests and religious houses : the Monks spread them- 
selves over the whole face of it, and no other part of Eu- 
rope was celebrated more for the sanctity and learn- 
ing of its several monastic orders. These great men 
set up in r ecluse places, which they cleared of woods, 
cultivated them with their own hands, and in the course 
of time rendered them the most delightful spots in the 
kingdom. They well deserved the perpetual possession 
of lands purchased at such expense. Their deserts be- 
came cities, and gave rise to them :* here they set up 
schools, in which they educated the youth, not only of 
the Island, but of most parts of Europe, in the know- 
ledge of the Holy Scriptures, and of polite literature* 
They fasted and prayed without intermission ; and 
preached more by their example than by precept itself. 
They sent their missionaries in shoals into the continent, 
to convert its heathen and confirm its christian inhabi- 
tants ; set up schools in those parts, and laid the foun- 
dations of the most flourishing universities in Europe. 
They taught the Saxons, Danes and Picts the use of 
letters ; and converted the latter to Christianity, by the 
preaching of Columb-Kille, who quitted his right of 



* Alas ! These cities have again become deserte. 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



79 



accession to the crown of Ireland, for a more perma- 
nent one, in the habit of a poor monk. When Eu- 
rope groaned under the weight of Gothic tyranny, 
Ireland, as the judicious Doctor Prideaux observes, 
became the prime seat of learning to ail Christendom : 
hither sciences fled for protection, and here its fol- 
lowers and professors were amply supported and ge- 
nerously maintained. For the converted Saxons, this 
great people erected the famous college of Mayo in the 
west of Ireland, called to this day, Mayo of the Saxons. 
Here Alfred and other princes received their Educa- 
tion. In our city of Armagh, it is affirmed that no 
fewer than 7000 scholars studied at the same time in 
its university ;* although the kingdom was then spread 
with many other academies equally celebrated, if not 
equally numerous. On this foundation did they cul- 
tivate knowledge and Christianity, both at home and 
abroad ; and thus did they fulfil the glorious commis- 
sion given by our Saviour to the Apostles, Go ye, and 
teach all nations." 

Behold the reverse of this picture. The monks 
were driven from their dwellings, the seminaries were 
destroyed, the students dispersed, the arts and scien- 
ces laid prostrate, commerce discouraged, and a wil- 
derness of slavery grew up, where genius had been 
cultivated, where politeness was the common and stu- 
died accomplishment. Oh, what an ungrateful re- 
turn from Britain, whose Alfred received his edu- 
cation at the college of Mayo. " Perhaps, Alfred was 
the greatest man ever lived. What writer of emi- 
nence, whether poet, lawyer, or historian, has not 
selected him as the object of highest praises ? As king, 
as soldier, as patriot, as lawgiver, in all his characters 
he is by all, regarded as having been the greatest, 
wisest, most virtuous."! 



* This is a greater number of students than any one literary 
institution in the British dominions can now boast of ; and more 
than are contained in all the charter-schools of Ireland, 
f Gobbet* 



80 



INQUISITION -EXAMINE!;. 



The suppression of literature was well calculated 
to promote immorality, but the Godly government 
was not willing to entrust the growth of this evil to 
the mere influence of ignorance, a hatred of popery 
suggested the enactment of special laws on this head. 

" After the first of May 174G, every marriage cele- 
brated by a Popish priest, between a Papist and any 
person who had been, or hath professed himself or 
herself to be a Protestant, at any time within twelve 
months of such celebration of marriage, or between 
two Protestants, shall be null and void to all intents 
and purposes, without any process, judgment, or sen- 
tence of the law whatever." 

u The eldest son (of a Papist) conforming (to the 
Protestant religion) immediately acquires and in the 
life time of his father, the permanent part, what our 
law calls the reversion and inheritance of the estate T 
and he discharges it by retrospect ; and annuls every 
sort of voluntary settlement made by the father ever 
so long before his conversion. This he may sell or 
dispose of immediately, and alienate it from the fami- 
ly for ever* 5 ;* 

" No Papist, after the 20th January, 1695, shall 
be capable to have, or keep in his possession, or to 
the possession of any other, to his use, or at his dis- 
position, any horse, gelding, or mare, of the value of 
live pounds or more ; and if any person of the Pro- 
testant religion, shall make discovery thereof upon 
oath, to any two justices of the peace, or to the chief 
magistrate of any city or town corporate, they may 
within their respective limits, by warrant under their 
hands and seals, authorize such person, in the day- 
time only, to search for and secure all such horses : 
and in case of resistance, to break open any door, 
and bring such horse or horses before them ; and such 
discoverer (being of the Protestant religion) paying 
or making tender, before such justice, mayor, &c. of 



* Burke. 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



81 



the sum of five pounds five shillings, to the owner or 
possessor of such horse, after such payment, or ten- 
der and refusal, the property of such horse or horses, 
shall be vested in the person making such discovery 
and tender, as if the same had been bought and sold 
in market overt." 

These, I say, are laws of immorality ; the Protes- 
tant will not say that they are laws of religion. The 
sacred institution of marriage is declared a nullity, 
and its offspring legitimate in the eyes of heaven, is, 
by the inquisitorial, anti-popish, and sacrilegious laws 
of Ireland, bastardized. The son is incited to rebel 
against his parent, and his rebellion is applauded and 
rewarded. The law of the Catholic and of the Pro- 
testant says " honour thy father and thy mother," but 
the human edict made for the suppression of popery, 
and, professedly, for the promotion of Protestantism, 
says, son, deny the faith of thy parent, and become 
the proprietor of his estate. Nothing so abominable 
as this, has ever been committed by, or even impu- 
ted to, the Spanish Inquisition. The authority which 
vests in one man the right to seize and keep another's 
horse against the owner's consent* and «f lecc than a 
fair valuation, legalizes robbery ; and may, with equal 
justice, be extended to all species of property, and at 
any price however low. Why the Irish legislature 
confined the right to that of robbing the neighbour of 
his horse, I know not. I am not engaged in theologi- 
cal controversy, and will leave to others to settle the 
point ; whether the law, u dato Cwsari, que sunt Ca- 
seins," applies in this case. 

" All Popish archbishops, bishops, vicars-generaJ, 
deans, Jesuits, monks, friars, and all other regular po- 
pish clergy, and all Papists exercising any ecclesias- 
tical jurisdiction, shall depart this kingdom, before 
the 1st of May, 1698. And if any of them shall be, 
at any time after the said day, within this kingdom, 
they shall be imprisoned and remain there without 
bail, till they be transported beyond the seas, out of 



82 



INQUISITION EXAMINED 



the king's dominions, wherever the king, his heirs oj 
successors, or chief governors of this kingdom shall 
think fit; and if any so transported shall return again 
into this kingdom,, then to be guilty of high treason, 
and suffer accordingly." The sentence awarded to 
high treason has been stated in page 63. 

The Protestant religion recognizes the right of 
self-interpretation of the scriptures, and will not take 
part with the civil law which dooms to death the per- 
son who believes in the bible as interpreted by Catho- 
lic priests. 

I have already given as many extracts of laws as I 
can any way find room for. I cannot even give a- 
bridgments of the many penal statutes, which dis- 
qualified the Catholics from serving on juries, from 
loaning money on mortgage, from being guardians of 
orphan children, from taking or holding leases of 
land, from exercising the elective or representative 
franchises, owning or keeping fire arms, from enjoy- 
ing any office of honour or emolument, civil or mili- 
tary, I cannot give transcripts of those laws which 
compelled them to find Protestant substitutes in the 
militia . anH rpndf>red them liable to reimburse any 
property which might be seized on the nign seas du- 
ring any war with a popish prince. I must pass these 
and many other such laws, without that interesting 
detail which prescribed limits prevent my giving, I 
must close this department of my subject with some 
facts tending to show that the laws were not merely 
formal or inoperative. If I confine myself to a few 
cases, I beg the reader not to suppose that my mate- 
rials are exhausted, they are rather inexhaustible. 

As persecution in Ireland was all for the professed 
good of the church, or, as the hypocrite Cromwell 
would express it, for the " glory of God." so it be- 
came necessary to destroy the heretical clergy. This 
This was highly beneficial to those who were most 
active in the good work. The Catholic church had 
tithes, lands, churches, silver and gold vessels, and 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



83 



much riches. These became the property of the 
plunderers, and whatever might have been the pre- 
text, this was the true motive of the persecution. 

During this persecution, three thousand Catholics 
took refuge in the Cathedral of Cashel ; the ruffian 
soldiers forced the doors, and, by order of their com- 
mander, butchered the whole, clergy and laity, men, 
women, and children. 

On St. Stephen's day, during the celebration of di- 
vine service, in a Catholic chapel, in Cook-street, 
Dublin, the Mayor and other city officers, accom- 
panied by a file of soldiers, rushed into the chapel, 
dispersed the congregation, and made prisoners of the 
clergy, and prize of the plate and other valuable arti- 
cles found therein. 

To this I couid add a long list of similar enormities, 
but enough for the present purpose. 

The church being robbed, and the church estates 
sequestered, the greedy cormorants attacked indi- 
viduals and whole bodies of the people, forcing them 
into rebellion, and then rendering the rebellion, thus 
excited, a pretext for plunder, and for every species 
of cruelty. A great number of the clergy were put 
to death by the hands of the executioner, and still 
more came to their death by imprisonment. The 
laity suffered in full proportion. 

Sir Charles Coote, acting under a general order to 
hang priests and rebels, seized Priest Higgins who 
had been taken under the special protection of the 
lord Ormond at Dublin, and had him executed for the 
crime of being a priest, and this with such expedition, 
that Ormond had no opportunity to save him. Against 
this priest, there was no special charge, he underwent 
no examination, and had no trial. 

Late events brought on the Irish stage, and render- 
ed notorious, the names of O'Brien and Reynolds. 
The employment of such knaves was not without 
precedent. Among those of earlier times was Owen 
Q'Conaiy. This wretch was a convert to the new 



84 



INQUISITION EXAMINED* 



religion, and would be a bad member of any. He 
was at the service of the " honour of God" party, and 
could, to use a vulgar phrase, swear through an oak 
board. This wretch to who e testimony, the " glory 
of God" party, if we must credit their base historians, 
owed, that they were not massacred by the Papists, 
on the morning of the 23d of October, 1641, was an 
immoral drunken servant of Sir John Clotworthy, 
and was so intoxicated and in liquor, at the time of 
giving his private information to lord justice Parsons, 
of the intended insurrection and massacre, that it be- 
came absolutely necessary to send him to bed, whence, 
after a short snoring repose, he was brought forth, half 
asleep, half awake, half walking, half falling, neither 
quite drunk, nor quite sober, to tell his horrid rela- 
tion of what was to happen, but was not attempted, 
although it w r as to be in part executed at such a dis- 
tance that no precaution or plan to prevent it tho- 
roughly could be devised or executed by the govern- 
ment. It was how r ever resolved by the dominant 
part} 7 , that there should be a rebellion, and conse- 
quently arrests, imprisonments, executions, and what 
was better than all, because more profitable, confisca- 
tions of the property of the popish rebels. That 
O'Conaly knew nothing of any intended rebellion 
was amply evident by every circumstance connected 
with the supposed case. That he would be excluded 
from the confidence, and, it might be added, from the 
society of Irish Catholic gentlemen, by his low rank 
in society, by his notorious character, and, if they in- 
tended murder of the Protestants, by his religion, is 
equally evident. On his testimony, however, the 
w r ork of loyalty commenced, by the arrest in the City 
of Dublin of Hugh McMahon, a gentleman of fortune 
and a proprietor of land in the county of Monaghan. 
This person was put to the rack, in order to extort a 
confession of guilt. Sir John Read, and the old Mr. 
Barnwell were also put to the rack. Nothing of im- 
portance could be drawn from these gentlemen, and 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



8$ 



m fact they could not make the confessions required 
of them without perjury, which even torture did not 
induce them to commit. 

On this trumped up affair of an intended massacre 
of Protestants in 1641, upon the information of drunken 
O'Conaly, the Protestant party in Ireland resolved on 
confiscations of popish property for the glory of God. * 
To justify this, there must be crimes, real or imagina- 
ry, perjury and provocation were to prepare the way 
for every species of injustice and cruelty ; inquisitors 
were to discover, and public executioners or semi-li- 
censed barbarians were to exterminate popery, by 
the murder, in one shape or another, of its conscien- 
tious votaries. A public accusation and trial was but a 
matter of form, the charge was often true, because it 
consisted in that which the accused deemed a virtue, 
and would not deny ; if otherwise, yet the chance of 
acquittal was little better. Prejudiced judges, cor- 
rupt sheriffs, and packed juries, soon decided the fate 
of the accused. It even became the practice to trans- 
port Irish prisoners to be tried in London, where the 
witnesses for the accused were generally prevented 
by their poverty or their fears from attending. The 
Catholic archbishop Plunket of Armagh, was hurried 
off to London, put on his trial for a supposed conspi- 
racy to aid a supposed intended invasion of Ireland by 
French troops, evidence could easily falsify this ill 
constructed charge, that evidence was on the road, 
but the court was in a hurry, and the amiable Plunket 
was martyred before the proof of his innocence had 
reached the head quarters of Protestantism. 

The fabrication of letters by the government agents, 
anonymously, or in the real name of some Catholic, 
was the common means of exciting alarm ; the evil 
doers are easily terrified, many who came to Ire- 



* " There were too many Protestants in Ireland who wanted 
another rebellion, that they might increase their estates by new 
forfeitures. " — C abte. 

8 



INQUISITION EXAMINED, 



land to share in the spoils, would, on such occasions 
fly back, and carrj' the alarm into England, Many 
of the letters and notices of a more modern date 
bearing the terrifying signature of " Rork," were 
probably of a similar origin. Whether this Captain 
Rock was a booted gentleman pacing a carpetted 
room in the Dublin castle, or a barefooted descendant 
of Milesius, bounding over the hills of Tipperary or 
Cork, whether he enjoys the otium cum dignitate, un- 
der the vice-regal patronage of an Irish lord lieute- 
nant, or, vivacious as a cat, has yet to die another 
death, his plans or his capers have certainly given a 
new impulse to inquiry, and a renovated edge to the 
natural acuteness of the Irish peasant,* whose every 
future act, going undoubtedly to his own emancipa- 
tion, will be governed by rules, and by a system, 
which require but a certain degree of policy and co- 
operation, to render armies of soldiers and of spies, 
of swearers and executioners, of tories and twelfth of 
July-men, but an incumbrance to those who must sup- 
port them. As education extends (and it is fast ex- 
tending in Ireland, for the Irish people are, as they 
always were, fond of letters) public opinion will be 
concentrated and become forcible. In a war of bayo- 
nets, the oppressor may force his vassals to fight a- 
gainst their brethren, to conquer or extirpate them, 
but man's mind will be free in spite of despotism. 
When the war is to be one of opinion, the whole force, 
or nearly so, will be on the side of the people. In 
the day, when this will be the case, rulers such as 
Cromwell, will find themselves without support, sava- 



* I do not like the word peasant, I use it here, that I may 
nave the opportunity of expressing my dislike of it. It is a term 
which a republican should never apply to a man. It is descrip- 
tive of a degraded state, and that in the absence of any crime. 
The word seems to be of French derivation, and may have been 
first used in France, to distinguish between the haughty noble. 
and the degraded paysan. There are no peasantry in Ameri- 
ca, I would fain say there were none in Ireland. 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



87 



ges such as Barrymore, Inchiquin, and Coote, will be 
compelled to forego their iniquitous designs. Bar- 
rymore was an unprincipled speculator in poli- 
tics, he is stated by lord Orrery, to have nothing but 
what he took from the rebels, and, as an instance of 
the extent of his ravages, to have "hanged forty-three 
notable rebels for a breakfast." It was the practice 
of lord Inchiquin to give no quarter in battle, to put 
to the sword in coid blood, all those who surrendered 
as prisoners, and even to waylay and hang such as he 
knew were proceeding to submit to the lord lieute- 
nant ; thus adding ill faith to excessive cruelty. The 
horrid detail of the murders and persecutions of the 
monster Sir Charles Coote, have not and never will 
be fuliy written, his memory is held in the utmost de- 
testation by the Irish people, the oral relations of his 
cruelties, kept up by tradition, may possibly have suf- 
fered somewhat from exaggeration, but no small part 
of them must be true, and although but a twentieth 
were so, he must have been the most sanguinary 
monster ever formed in human shape. 

Much of the cruelty exercised against the Irish will 
appear to many, to be a mere matter of war, in which 
murder was legalized by precedent. I am ready to 
admit that dominion and plunder were the real object, 
it cannot however be denied, that religion was the 
pretext, that from the commencement of the reign of 
Elizabeth, down to the year 1825, when the British 
parliament rejected the bill for the emancipation of 
Catholics, every measure of Britain against Ireland, 
had for its real or avowed object, the establishment 
of Protestantism or the suppression of Popery. The 
entire history, would prescribed limits allow, might 
consistently be introduced into an impartial examina- 
tion of the inquisition. The butchery at Santry by 
Sir Charles Coote, and that at the Curragh of Kildare, 
by Sir James Duff, in about two centuries afterwards, 
may well ran^e alongside of each other, as parts of 
ike same anti-popish system. The plan of the Pro- 



88 



INQUISITION EXAMINED* 



testant governors to extirpate the Catholic population 
of Ireland, formed about the same period when the 
men, women, and children, were indiscriminately 
slaughtered at Santry, had subsequently a parallel in 
the opinion, if not in the proposition, of the late lord 
chancellor Clare, that the Catholics must be extirpa- 
ted, if Protestantism is to be preserved.* 

u The penal laws were in general (says Dr. Mil- 
ner) no less severely exercised against the Catholics 
of Ireland, though they constituted the body of the 
people, than they were against those of England, 
Dr. Curry has preserved (amongst a great many oth- 
er sufferers in the same cause) the names of twenty- 
seven priests, or religious, who suffered death on ac- 
count of their religion, in the reign of Elizabeth. 
Spondanus and Pagi relate the horrid cruelties exer- 
cised by Sir W. Drury on F. O'Hurle the Catholic 
archbishop of Cashel, who falling into the hands of 
this sanguinary governor in the year 1579, was first 
tortured by his legs being immersed in jack-boots 
filled with quick lime, water, &c. until they were 
burned to the bone, in order to force him to take the 
oath of supremacy, and then, with other circumstan- 
ces of barbarity, executed at the gallows. It was a 
usual thing to beat with stones the shorn heads of the 
clergy, till their brains gushed out. Others had nee- 
dles thrust under their nails, or the nails themselves 
torn off. Many were stretched on the rack, or press- 
ed under weights. Others had their bowels torn open, 
w T hich they were obliged to support with their hands, 
or their flesh was torn with currycombs. ?' 

Such were the persecutions of christians in the 
early stage of Protestant power. Those who have 
witnessed the expiring struggles of the Protestant as- 
cendency, during the last fifty years, will bear evidence, 
that with less power to do harm, it possessed all the 



* Such a measure is not deemed necessary to the preservation 
of Protestantism in America. 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



89 



phrenetic zeal of the earlier furies : free quarters^ 
courts martial, dispensing with juries, or packing them 
when used, suspending the writ of habeas corpus, and 
proclaiming districts, were the most substantial evi- 
dence that there was a .government ; pitch-caps, 
walking-gallowses, and Orange parades were so many- 
proofs, that there are not wanting legitimate descen- 
dants of the early torturers, and assassins. The 
qualities of the government cannot fail to make an 
impression of some kind on the governed. When 
the government holds an even scale, as it does in 
the United States of America, there will exist among 
the people, a becoming subordination to law, a gene- 
ral desire for a fair and equal dispensation of justice ; 
but when, as in Ireland, the government should veer to 
an extreme, and that to the point of injustice, the peo- 
ple will also incline to extremes, the vicious adhering 
to the government, the virtuous moving at the great- 
est distance from it, or approaching it hostilely. In 
this respect, the great body of the Irish people are in- 
fluenced by that moral virtue which opposes injustice 
whencesoever it proceeds. While nature holds sway 
over the human mind, the sufferer will revolt at ill 
usage, the oppressed will turn on the oppressor. Ire- 
land is a remarkable instance of this. During nearly 
seven centuries there has appeared little, if any of 
protection on the one side, or of real loyalty on the 
other, injury and retaliation have filled up the long; 
and melancholy history of Ireland's connexion with 
Britain. Well might a writer say, u there is not per- 
haps in the history of the world, another instance of 
a government and a people going on so long together, 
with so little observance of law on either side." 

The Irish as a people have so courageously and 
with such constancy, adhered to what they deemed 
right in religion ; they have so steadily opposed the 
mis-government which laid waste and rendered un- 
profitable a land so peculiarly favoured with the 
means of happiness and so abundantly supplied with 

8* 



90 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



the materials of wealth, that, when hereafter, the 
present time and present people will have passed 
away, when the prejudice which misdirects, the zeal 
which dishonours, and the violence which disgraces 
the dominant party, will die with it, when the acri- 
mony which is too often a reproach to persons of both 
parties, will subside into better feeling, when crimina- 
tion will no longer indulge in slander, and recrimina- 
tion be no longer necessary to the injured, then, when 
a feverish prepossession will cool into healthy reflec- 
tion, there will remain but one question in respect to 
the Irish descendants of the early Milesian emigrants^ 
whether most to admire them as christians, or as 
aaen ; as Catholics, or as patriots* 



It is a remarkable trait in the history of the refor- 
mation, that the reformers in England, in Holland,, 
in France, and elsewhere, modelled their conduct, in 
many respects, on that which they imputed, and often 
falsely, to others, and on the presumed commission of 
which, those laws were enacted against English and 
Irish Catholics, which, however they might serve the 
pecuniary interest of the Protestant persecutors, were 
clearly opposed to the tolerating principles of the 
Protestant religion. Among the charges against the 
English Catholics, was that of encouraging, and, as far 
as possible, taking part with every foreign Catholic 
prince who made or meditated war on England. 
Whenever the oppressed Protestants of other coun- 
tries rebelled against their governments, whenever 
any foreign war took a religious character, the Pro- 
testant government of England was generally ready 
to fan the flame, privately to comfort, or publicly to 
aid, the Protestant party. Queen Elizabeth of Eng- 
land became the ally or friend of every German 
prince who joined the Lutheran standard, she was 
the ally of Denmark and of Sweden, and the abettor 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



91 



of the Protestants of the Low countries. In fact the 
acts and sayings of the reformers would amount to 
this, that while they condemned what was wrong in 
others, they claimed for themselves the exclusive 
right of committing the like, as if Protestant virtue 
were one thing, and Catholic virtue another ; as if 
these two sects, having two different heads on earth, 
must also have two distinct heads in heaven. We 
believe neither sect is ready, as christians, to submit 
to the imputation. The Catholic princes have in- 
deed taken part in wars and in persecutions against 
the Protestant reformers, but wrong in one instance, 
cannot justify wrong in another, besides, the fact is, 
there was much of insincerity as well as of private de- 
sign in all these transactions. The civil interest of the 
nations, the political concerns of the governments, 
were the real objects that influenced those proceed- 
ings which true religion was ever ready to condemn. 
The French government, by secret or indirect means, 
alternately countenanced the Huguenots and Catho- 
lics, in their furious murders of each other. The ob^ 
servation may in great truth be applied to the British 
government in its transactions in Ireland. "Divide 
and conquer," was the rule, but in order to keep up 
a division w r hich could serve the ends of government, 
it was also necessary to keep both parties in exis- 
tence. Could all be made Catholics, or all become 
Protestants, or could one party be made so all power- 
ful that the other could not, or so amenable that it 
would not resist, then there would be no use for ar- 
mies, and the government would even founder in the 
calm. It must surely be a gross error in religion 
which can make people injure each other, for the 
glory of God ; and not less an error in politics, which 
arms man against man, merely at the will of one or 
of a few designing scoundrels, who artfully sacrifice 
the public weal only to promote their own private in- 
terest. Strange, that rational beings will not cease 
to be the instruments of cruelty and of sin. that Catho- 



INQUISITION EXAMINE!*, 



lies and Protestants will not shake hands, forgive paal 
injuries, and lay the foundation of future happiness, 
in an agreement to love and respect each other. 

Persecution avowedly for the promotion of religion, 
has swept from the world fifty millions of human be- 
ings. Could the spirits of the deceased visit this 
world, they would read a lesson which would make 
kings tremble, and men hide their faces. The fright- 
ful and in a great degree forgotten excesses commit- 
ted in every part of Europe, would be brought to light, 
for a thousandth part of them is not written, and can- 
not be now told by human being. What we have of 
them, what we know of them, is condemned by all 
who read the shocking detail, yet, strange, we can 
condemn the past and nevertheless make it a prece- 
dent for imitation ; men, it seems may be christians 
by profession, and yet murderers by practice. 

The British historian Hume confesses, that Philip of 
Spain, the violent persecutor of Protestants, " found- 
ed his determined tyranny on maxims of civil policy, 
as well as on principles of religion." This is a great 
concession from a Deist: had Hume been a christian, 
he would carry his candour a greater length, and have 
acknowledged, that it was altogether civil policy ; re- 
ligion is not bloody, and could not sanction the acts 
of the sanguinary tyrant. The opposition which 
Philip met from his subjects in the Low Countries, is 
a strong proof how impossible it is to bend the minds 
of men to doctrines not conformable to their conscien- 
cious belief. The opposition of the subjects of the 
kings of England, in Ireland, is an additional illustra- 
tion of it. In one case the king was Catholic, and 
the subjects in a great part Protestant ; in the other 
instance, the king is Protestant, and the greater part 
of the subjects Catholic : in the one case the king, 
after a dreadful contest, w r as expelled ; in the other, 
the king yet rules. There are signs of coming events, 
sometimes so strong that the blind only cannot see 
them* The sanguinary Duke of Alva boasted that h§ 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



93 



would extirpate the heretics of the Low Countries, 
and he seemed bent on performing his promise. He 
is said to have caused eighteen thousand Protestants 
to be despatched by the hands of the common execu- 
tioner, besides the vast numbers otherwise destroyed, 
yet persecution did not prevail to extermination, the 
Spaniards were finally driven from the country ; pub- 
lic opinion had long rested on the conviction that such 
must be the issue of the contest : the tyrant only 
was. blind to his impending fate. The tyranny exer- 
cised towards the Catholics of Ireland has endured 
for nearly three centuries, the persecutor, flushed with 
long victory, seems to believe that his power will be 
endless. Having proceeded thus far, with impunity, 
he thinks he may go on with safety ; but he is in er- 
ror, he only is blind, the time is pregnant with a sign 
that will prove infallible. The Irish Cf> lb °u>s must 
be unconditionally emancipated, or BritiS^ rule will 
soon cease in Ireland. The Duke of York may 
come to the throne, he may employ the Duke of 
Wellington, or some other " conquering hero," but 
the Irish mind, which never bent to a Cromwell or an 
Ireton, would most assuredly prevail against the me- 
nace of the chief, and the power of the subaltern. In 
such a contest, we should hope that the Irish Catho- 
lic would not, like the Protestant of the Low Coun- 
tries, disgrace himself by the violence of retaliation. 
" I heartily join (says Dr. Milner) in condemning and 
execrating the sanguinary vengeance of the Spanish 
governor and government against their seditious sub- 
jects of the Calvanistical persuasion ; but to form an 
adequate judgment in this case, it is proper to attend 
to the provocations which the former had received 
from the latter. Not to mention then the conspiracy 
ofCarli and Rissot to assassinate the Duke of Alva 
himself, at the monastery of Groonfelt, near Brussels, 
it is certain that one class of the reformers had en- 
deavoured to erect the same fanatical and bloody 
kingdom in Holland, which John of Leyden actually 



94 



INQUISITION EXAMINED* 



established at Minister, crying out, that God had giv- 
en up the country to them, and that vengeance await* 
ed all who would not join them. It was an ordinary 
thing with them, to assault the clergy in the discharge 
of their functions, and the air resounded with their 
cries of, kill the priests, kill the monks, kill the ma- 
gistrates. These violences became more common as 
the reformation extended itself wider. Wherever 
Vandermerk and Sonoi, both of them lieutenants to 
the Prince of Orange, carried their arms, they uni- 
formly put to death, in cold blood, all the priests and 
religious they could lay their hands upon, as at Ou- 
denard, Ruremond, Dort, Middlebourg, Delft, and 
Shoaoven. A celebrated biographer says, that Van- 
dermerk slaughtered more unoffending Catholic priests 
and peasants, in the year 1572, than Alva executed 
Protestants during his whole government. He gives 
us, in tht ^me passage, a copious extract from PA- 
brege de i Hist, de PHolland, par Mons. Kerroux, in 
which this Protestant author, who professes to write 
from judicial records still extant, draws a most fright- 
ful picture of the infernal barbarities of Sonoi on the 
Catholic peasants of North Holland. He says that 
some of these, after undergoing the torments of scour- 
ges and the rack, were enveloped in sheets of linen 
that had been steeped in spirits of wine, which being 
inflamed, they were universally scorched to death ; 
that others, after being tortured with burning sulphur 
and torches in the tenderest parts of their bodies, 
were made to die for want of sleep, executioners, 
being placed on guard over them to beat and torment 
them, with clubs and other weapons, whenever ex- 
hausted nature seemed ready to sink into forgetful- 
ness ; that several of them were fed with nothing but 
salt herrings, without a drop of water or other liquid, 
until they expired with thirst; Finally, that others 
were stung to death by wasps, or devoured alive by rat?, 
which were confined in coffins with them. Amongst 
the cruelties, there recounted, some are of so indecent 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



95 



& nature that they will not bear repeating, and those 
which occur above, are only mentioned, to induce 
Dr. Sturges,* and other writers of his class, to join 
with me in burying the odious names of Alva and 
Sonoi in equal oblivion. n 

On this subject, Robertson in his history of the 
reign of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, says, " The 
territories which form the republic of the United 
Netherlands, were lost during the first part of the six- 
teenth century, among the numerous provinces sub- 
ject to the house of Austria ; and were then so incon- 
siderable, that hardly one opportunity of mentioning 
them had occurred in all the busy period of this histo- 
ry. But soon after the peace of Chateau-chambresis,t 
the violent and bigotted maxims of Philip's goverment 
being carried into execution with unrelenting vigour 
by the Duke of Alva, exasperated the free people of 
the Low Countries to such a degree, that they threw 
off the Spanish yoke and asserted their ancient liber- 
ties and laws. These they defended with a perseve- 
ring valor which gave employment to the arms of Spain 
during half a century, exhausted the vigour, ruined 
the reputation of that monarchy, and at last con- 
strained their ancient masters to recognise and to treat 
with them as a free and independent state." 

How much should we regret that a people, so bold, 
so brave and so presevering, should have disgraced 
themselves and their conquest, by acts, so cruel and 
savage, that the future historian must be at a loss to 
determine, whether their religious affections were the 
result of ill regulated piety, or of overheated fanati- 
cism ; whether their patriotism was real or spurious, 
The spreading of the reformation in Germany and 
its introduction into France, gave rise to that dreadful 



* A Protestant minister between whom and Dr. Milner, there 
existed a controversial disputation. 

f Concluded between Philip the Second of Spain, and Henry 
the Second of France ; and between the latter and Elizabeth cf 
England in 1559 



96 



INQUISITION EXAMINE!* 



contest between the French government and Hugue- 
nots which spread desolation and death with a sinful 
cruelty on both sides, disgraceful to humanity and dis- 
honourable to religion. In fact, however the French 
government may have, in the early stage of the refor- 
mation, feared its consequences on society, it yet was 
instrumental to its introduction into France by in- 
sidiously making it the means of creating political dis- 
sentions in Germany. Dr. Milner in his notice of 
the horrid massacre of Protestants on St Barthole- 
mew's day, at Paris, says, " I will not attempt to jus- 
tify it, as the king, the queen dowager, and the minis- 
ters of France did, at the time when it happened, by 
pretending that the Huguenots were on the point of 
executing a plot to destroy them, and to overturn the 
government, because it is now clear from history, 
that no such plot existed at that particular time. 1 will 
not even extenuate its atrociousness by expatiating on 
the two real conspiracies for seizing oi> this very king 
and his court, and for subverting the constitution of 
their country, which the Calvinists had actually at- 
tempted to execute ; or the four pitched battles which 
they had fought against the armies of their sove- 
reign ; or on their treachery in delivering up Havre 
de Grace, the key of the kingdom, into the hands of 
a foreign potentate, queen Elizabeth ; or even upon 
the massacres with which they themselves had pre- 
viously inundated all France. So far from this, I am 
ready to exclaim with Thuanus, in contemplating the 
horrors of St. Bartholemew's day, excidat ilia dies 
avo nec postera credant scecula. But let the blame 
fall where it is due, on the black vengeance of the 
unrelenting Charles the Ninth, and on the remorse- 
less ambition of the unprincipled Catherine of Mede- 
cis, who alternately favoured the Catholics and Hu- 
guenots, as seemed best to suit her own interests.* 



* Is not this, in effect, an epitomised history of the equivocal, 
double-dealing, conduct of the British government towards the 
Catholics and Protestants of Ireland ? 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



97 



The very calumny that I mentioned before, which the 
king and queen invented to excuse their barbarity, is 
a sufficient proof that they did not conceive it lawful 
to commit such crimes to serve their religion, for 
which indeed neither of them felt much zeal ; neither 
was this villany contrived w r ith the participation of a 
single individual of the French clergy :* on the con- 
trary, this body was the most forward, at the time, to 
oppose its completion, and has, ever since, been the 
most warm in reprobating it. It is in particular re- 
corded of Henuyer, a Dominican friar and bishop of 
Lisieux, that he opposed to the utmost of his power, 
the execution of the king's order! for the murder of 
the Protestants in his diocese, answering the governor 
of the province when he communicated it to him : 
4 It is the duty of the good shepherd to lay down his 
life for his sheep, not to let them be slaughtered be- 
fore his face. These are my sheep, though they have 
gone astray, and I am resolved to run all hazards in 
protecting them. 5 ' 

Montesquieu says that when there is but one religion 
in a state (as in Spain,) i#Ties at the magistrates' dis- 
cretion io reject a new doctrine ; but, when many re- 
ligions (as in England) have got a footing, they are to 
be tolerated. J Admitting this principle, it could not 



* Had it been otherwise, had some or even all the French 
clergy concurred in the murders, it would yet be no proof that 
the Catholic religion had or could have approved or defended 
such atrocity. 

f Must not this order by the king- be issued in his civil capa- 
city. He was not head of the church, and but a bad son of it. 
How then can his act be attributed to the Catholic or to any re- 
ligion, seeing that he bore or. assumed no ecclesiastical au- 
thority, not even by deputation. 

| Toleration should be understood in a liberal sense. To 
permit a man to say his prayers as he pleases, is not toleration, 
ifheistobe disfranchised for so saying them. The spirit of 
perfect toleration is fast travelling through the "world. England 
seems destined to set iio example of real toleration to any coun- 
try, she seems resolved to hold as long as possible by ti e princi- 



9 



98 



INQUISITION EXAMINED, 



justify the French king in his persecution of Protes - 
tants ; he was in no small degree the indirect introdu- 
cer of the Lutheran religion into his kingdom ; and 
however he might rely on the maxim of Montesquieu 
in justification of keeping it out in the first instance, it 
was too late to attempt its suppression after letting or 
rather inviting, it in. The massacre of St. Barthole- 
mew's day, was a murder of a foul and monstrous 
magnitude. 

The state of affairs in France, after the death of 
Francis the Second, and in the commencement of 
the administration of the queen regent, in the year 
1562, is thus described by Hume. 

" The queen regent of France, when reinstated in 
authority by the death of her son Francis, had formed 
a plan of administration more subtle than judicious ; 
and balancing the Catholics with the Huguenots,* the 
duke of Guise with the prince of Conde, she endeav- 
oured to render herself necessary to both, and to es- 
tablish her own dominion on their constrained obe- 
dience. But the equal counterpoise, which, among 
foreign nations, is the source of tranquility, proves al- 
ways the ground of quarrel between domestic factions, 
and if the animosity of religion concur with the fre- 
quent occasions which present themselves of mutual 
injury, it is impossible during any time, to preserve a 
firm concord in so delicate a situation. The consta- 
ble Montmorency, moved by zeal for the ancient faith, 
joined himself to the duke of Guise : the king of Na- 
varre, from his inconstant temper, and his jealousy of 
the superior genius of his brother, embraced the same 
party : and Catherine finding herself depressed by 
this combination, had recourse to Conde and the Hu- 



ples of religious intolerance, and to be the last to give way to a 
current whose accumulated force will soon prove itself irre- 
sistible. 

* Ribbonmen and Orangemen, of Ireland I what think you of 
this ? Are you not also balanced against each other, by the p©- 
Iftical jugglers who laugh at,and scorn you both * 



REQUISITION EXAMINED. 



99 



guenots, who gladly embraced the opportunity of for- 
tifying themselves by her countenance and protection. 
An edict had been published granting a toleration to 
the Protestants, but the interested violence of the 
duke of Guise, covered with the pretence of religious 
zeal, broke through the agreement : and the two par- 
ties, after the fallacious tranquillity of a moment, re- 
newed their mutual insults and injuries. Conde, Co- 
ligni, Andelot, assembled their friends, and flew to 
arms. Guise and Montmorency got possession of the 
king's person, and constrained the queen regent to 
embrace their party. Fourteen armies were levied 
and put in motion in different parts of France. Each 
province, each city, each family, was agitated witb 
intestine rage and animosity. The father was divided 
against the son, brother against brother, and women 
themselves sacrificing their humanity as well as their 
timidity to the religious fury, distinguished themselves 
by acts of ferocity and valour. Wherever the Hu- 
guenots prevailed, the images were broken, the al- 
tars pillaged, the churches demolished, and the mon- 
asteries consumed by fire : where success attended 
the Catholics, they burned the bibles, re-baptized the 
infants,* constrained married persons to pass anew 
through the nuptial ceremony. And plunder, deso- 
lation, and bloodshed, attended the course of both." 

Dr. Milner, in his view of the conduct of the 
Catholics and Reformers, has the following paragraph. 

" We have moreover seen that when the occasion 
called for such exertions, (the exertions of the Catho- 
lics,) those who had it in their power to make them, 
supported the established (British Protestant) govern- 
ment, in opposition to their interest and that of their 
religion, with their purses and their swords. If you 



* I know not how far the exasperated fury of parties may 
have led them, but I think a second baptism of infants is contra- 
ry to the tenets of the Protestant church; it is certainly so in 
respect to the Catholic church. This re-baptizing of infant 

mu&i h'.we been a creature of Mr. Hume's conception. 



100 INQUISITION EXAMINED. 

turn jour eyes from England to the surrounding 
lions of Europe, during the period of this very reign, 
(the reign of Elizabeth) ask in which of them did the 
professors of the new religion prove the same loyalty 
to their Catholic sovereigns or magistrates who per- 
secuted or opposed them ? Did they not universally, 
in such cases, fly to arms, and overturn the govern- 
ment, when it was in their power to do so ? You 
should have glanced at the conduct of the Anabap- 
tists and the Lutherans in Germany and Sweden, the 
Huguenots in France, the Gueux in the Netherlands, 
the Zuinglians in Switzerland, the Presbyterians in 
Scotland, and the Calvanists at Geneva, before you 
charged the Catholics of England with disloyalty to 
queen Elizabeth." 

It is an unpleasant task to review the relative pre- 
tensions of conflicting parties, and still more so when 
religion enters into the dispute. The writer, in such 
case, is almost certain to bring on himself the censure 
of one or of both. Perhaps I ought to escape with 
whole bones, for truly I take part with neither, I 
merely stand forward the advocate of revealed reli- 
gion, by whatever name it be designated, I maintain 
that it is not a code of blood, confiscation, or death. 
That the Catholic and the Protestant alike sin, when 
they persecute, and that the best evidence either can 
give of purity of religion, is to imitate the chanty, the 
mildness, and the forbearance, of which the Redeemer 
of all, left so bright an example. I deny the right in 
a British king to say to the Irish Catholic, you must 
be Protestant, because he might as well and with the 
same propriety order him to adore the sun, if the king 
should think proper to adore that luminary. I deny 
the right of the Pope as a temporal prince, and he 
will not dare attempt it as head of the church, to force 
religion on me, or to propogate it by any other mode 
than the mild persuasives of the Gospel. I challenge 
the advocate for establishing religion by compulsion* 
to show how the man who disbelieves jn it, can be- 
come a convert to it. without committing crime m> 




INQUISITION EXAMINED* 



]0i 



less he has absolutely relinquished his disbelief, how 
he can swear that it is orthodox and yet disbelieve it, 
without committing perjury ; finally, 1 claim for every 
man the most perfect and entire liberty of conscience* 
I presume not to enter into a religious controversy, 
and leave to the learned theologian who spent his 
seven years in collegiate study, and the illiterate en- 
thusiast who spent as many years in earning his bread 
by the sweat of his brow, to determine what. is the 
true explanation of the scripture, 1 pretend not, here- 
in, to say, whether the Deist who denies the entire of 
the Bible, the Catholic who believes it all, or the 
Protestant who believes only a part, is right. I am 
certain that the persecutor for conscience sake, is 
wrong; and that a bloody inquisition, wherever and 
by whomsoever instituted, is not, and cannot be a te- 
net, of the divine religion. I am not however indif- 
ferent in the choice I make for myself. With O'Lea- 
ry, I say, " we have every respect for the christian 
religion and its ministers of all denominations, and, 
without any doubt, for that system in which we have 
had the happiness to be reared up, but we are ex- 
tremely sorry that religion has ever been made a pre- 
text for persecution or oppression." 



Having, as 1 hope, rendered it sufficiently plain, 
that the Protestants are involved, through the con- 
duct of their civil governments, in the charge which 
they erroneously make against the Catholics ; having 
sufficiently proven, that if the establisl: nent of a san- 
guinary Inquisition be a fundamenta tenet of the 
Catholic, it is, by a parity of reasoning, a fundamental 
tenet also of the Protestant religion, having placed 
the Catholic and Protestant religions alongside each 
other, so that it will be impossible to convict the one 
and acquit the other, I proceed with great satisfaction 
to show that neither are accountable for the excesses 



102 



INQUISITION EXAMINED, 



committed in their name. If the act of the magistrate 
may be charged to the religion of which he was a 
sincere or hypocritical professor, what sect will stand 
innocent ? If the guilty deserve death, who will throw 
the first stone ? " Since the days of the emperor The- 
odosius, laws have been enacted against heresy. Law- 
yers and divines of both communions have been divi- 
ded in their opinions : Geneva and' London, Calva- 
nist magistrates and Protestant kings, have concurred, 
with the Spanish inquisitors in blazing the faggot, and 
forestalling the rigour of eternal justice. The writ 
de heretico comburendo (of burning heretics) was in 
force down to the reign of Charles the Second, and- 
has met a learned apologist in Calvin. By the statute 
and common laws of England, some punishments are 
still* in force against heretics ; but how far these and 
severer punishments inflicted by the civil and impe- 
perial laws, are impious and unchristian, kings, not 
subjects, are interested to determine."! 

In the examination of this question, it seems neces- 
sary to rest for a moment on the point, whether the 
Pope be infallible ; it is a material question, because 
if he be infallible, he might use his infallibility to give 
the authority of infallible santion to every human in- 
stitution however opposed to reason and to justice. 
The assumed authority and consequent interference 
of Popes in the regulation of the civil concerns of na- 
tions, lias been the source of loud complaint by all 
classes of persons, and has been resisted by Catholics 
as well as by Protestants. I do not know however 
that any Pope has pretended to infallibility ; nor 
would it materially afiect my subject if he had ; for, 
whatever popes might assume, whatever individuals 
might suppose or believe, I am amply upheld in the 
position, that the infallibility of the Pope is not an 
article of the Catholic faith. The assertion that it 
is so, is altogether Protestant as far as I know, and 



M78I, +0 , Lcary. 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



whether Catholic or Protestant, I am not bound to go 
farther than a denial of it, I deny it most emphatical- 
ly ; the assertor of it is bound to make out his own 
case, or to relinquish it as untenable^ Among the 
Protestant writers who roundly asserted that the in- 
fallibility of the Pope was an article of Catholic faith,. 
Dr. Sturges, prebendary of Winchester, signalized 
himself by his zeal, yet when Dr. Milner replied, that 
persecution was not a tenet of the Roman Catholic 
religion, the prebendary comes- out in apparent as- 
tonishment, saying, "this is somewhat surprising, if it 
be true, all of us Protestants must have been long un- 
der an eggregious error." Dr. Sturges', caveat " if it 
be true," leaves room for any other minister of the es- 
tablished church to repeat the same charge, when- 
ever a like motive and object may influence him.* 

I have said (page 19), that, admitting the establish- 
ment of a bloody inquisition to be an essential ema- 
nation of the Catholic churchy and that every Catho- 
lic is bound to receive it as an article of Catholic 
faith, then the outcry against it comes with a bad< 
grace from those who themselves have instituted an 
inquisition as scrutinizing, a persecution as unrelen- 
ting, and punishments as cruel, as the most exagera- 



* Dr. Sturges secured to himself the patronage of the late 
bigotted king of England, by writing a book ag'ainst popery, a 
subject of which the Doctor was so ignorant, that he charged 
the institution of the Inquisition to St. Domnick, who died be- 
fore the pontificate of Innocent the Third, in whose reign it was 
founded. So vicious is the taste of a great proportion of British 
readers, that no author, however meritorious his work, can de- 
pend on a favourable reception, unless he disgraces his produc- 
tion by some libel or ridicule on the Catholic religion ; while a 
publication however contemptible in itself, will meet certain 
patronage, if it but contains a dash at the " whore of Babylon." 
O tempora, O mores ! 

It is also erroneously stated in Buchanan's Christian re- 
searches in Asia, that St. Domnick was the founder of the In- 
quisition. This writer gives a very improbable account? of his 
Kisit to Goa and to the prison of the inquisition at that place*. 



104 



INQUISITION EXAMLNED. 



ted accounts of those of Spain and Portugal. The 
British Protestant, to whom I alluded, will find him- 
self in quite an awkward situation, if, without an 
atom of evidence to support him, he will persevere 
to maintain that, the infallibility of the Pope is an ar- 
ticle or tenet of the Roman Catholic faith. 

The tenets of the Protestant church do not hind its 
members to receive as obligatory on them, or as or- 
thodox, whatever the head of the British church may 
direct or assert ; for, were this the case, the Protes- 
tant religion in America must, in its fundamental te- 
nets, differ from that of the Protestant church in 
America ; yet, there would be more reason in ascri- 
bing infallibility to the head of the Protestant, than to 
the head of the Catholic church ; for the king, who is 
head of the church in England, does assume an infal- 
libility, and such infallibility is publicly recognized : 
the law of the land says, " the king can do no wrong." 
Perhaps this principle was intended to apply to the 
king only in his civil capacity, although a devotion to 
the monarch, a dread of approaching within a hairs 
breadth of treason, or a desire to uphold the utmost 
prerogative of the crown, may have stood in the way 
of a perfect ecclaircisement. 1 think, however, that 
the English bishops are not inclined to submit their 
religion entirely to the king, for were they to do so, I 
know not what security they would have against the 
re-enaction of the six articles of Henry the Eighth, or 
the restoration of the church temporalities to the 
Catholic clergy. I am aware of the subtle arguments 
which lawyers draw from their view of the common 
law, and what they call the general system, in sup- 
port of the infallibility of the king; but I cannot, in 
this free country, swallow the dose. 1 do not hate a 
murderer the less because he wears a monarch's 
crown, I cannot see by what right a king may slay his 
subjects, and escape responsibility, because u the king 
cannot do wrong." The heir apparent to the Bri- 
tish crown may be brought to account for a crime, but 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



105 



although that crime were murder, although the judges 
were in session, although the jury were empannelled, 
although the evidence had been gone through, and 
that clear, unimpeached, and uncontradicted, yet, 
were the king to die, the judge- would be compelled 
by his duty, the moment he had official knowledge of 
the king's death, to suspend the proceedings, dis- 
charge the jury, and send the murderer, to rule over 
the nation, as he would over the church. This is, I 
think, improving on infallibility by giving it a retros- 
pective operation. An investigation of the morality 
of this law belongs not to my subject, it is extreme- 
ly necessary that myself and my readers have a good 
understanding on the several topics as we go along: 
this thing called infallibility is a stumbling block 
which must be removed else we cannot well proceed. 

Whatever the Catholics may have suffered under 
the government of a Protestant king who " cannot do 
wrong," I do not know that they ever attributed to 
the Protestant church that it contains any such funda- 
mental tenet as that its head is infallible. In the ab- 
sence of such charge, I see no necessity to enter mi- 
nutely on its denial. ■ . * . v r"' /•/► "l 
The error in respect to the papal infallibility (it it 
is not downright and wilful misrepresentation on the 
part of those who gave rise to it) must have arisen 
from the confounding of the Pope with the church, 
the head with the body. The infallibility of the 
church is, I think, the tenet of every christian sect; 
but the Pope is not the church, he is but its visible 
head and chief ruler upon earth, chosen, we may sup- 
pose, for his established piety, and sound judgment; 
yet, he is but a man, and may even be a bad man. 

1 presume that Catholics and Protestants are, by 
this time, prepared to give up as an article of faith 
any presumed infallibility in the heads of their res- 
pective churches, if either of them, in their religious 
capacities, ever entertained such belief, of W ^ 1C ^ * 
can find no proof whatever on the part of the Catfeo- 



106 INQUISITION EXAMINED 



lie, and nothing strictly religious on the part of the 
Protestant. 1, respectfully propose to both Catholic 
and Protestant, that we lay aside this affair of infalli- 
bility, we will undoubtedly get along better without it. 

The people of England loudly boast of their being 
a free people, they may be comparatively so, they 
may have more freedom than the Russian, the Pole, 
or the Turk, but they have less than the Americans. 
I am not on a political subject and will not quarrel 
with the Englishman on this point. If he has enough 
of liberty to please his palate, a stranger to him has 
no right to force more on him ; but if the errors of 
the English people or the evils of their government, 
be injurious by its example or otherwise to other na- 
tions, then it is fair, to a certain extent, to canvass 
the subject, were it only for the purpose of defence. 

To the power which the law gives to the British 
king, by declaring that he cannot do wrong, and the 
unlimited power of a parliament which is omnipo- 
tent,* England owes, that religion has beer) disgraced 
by persecution. Had the parliament really repre- 
sented the people, education would have been ground- 
ed on wholesome liberality, and the people would not 
have become the slaves of prejudice. This omnipotent 
parliament erected an Inquisition in England, this om- 
nipotent parliament has abridged the power of this in- 
quisition, and may, possibly, at some time, obliterate 
every remnant of it ; but it should not be forgotten, 
that the parliament may, in its omnipotence, even re- 
vive it. Omnipotence in a parliament seems to me 
as preposterous and untenable as infallibility in a 
king. If this be liberty to the Briton, be it so, but I 
protest against the introduction into the United States 
of America of any Inquisition, High court of com- 
mission, or parliamentary omnipotence, incompatible 



* Blackstone says of the British parliament <k It can change 
the religion of the iano\ and do every thing Oocter Heavta li&t 
\s possible.- 1 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



107 



with civil and religious liberty ; I labour to expel eve- 
ry remnant of it yet lurking therein. To be avowed- 
ly free, and yet a slave to ill-grounded prejudice, 
would be an anamoly in politics, ill suited to an en- 
lightened people. 



I do not see that a laborious course of argument 
can be necessary in order to discharge the Protestant 
religion from any participation in the erection of 
bloody tribunals in England, by a Protestant civil 
government, although Cobbet and others say that it 
grew out of the reformation, that is, had there been 
no reformation, England would not have been visited 
by the Protestant, Puritanical, and Catholic excesses, 
which converted England, and still more Ireland, into 
slaughter-houses, where hecatombs of human victims, 
were barbarously sacrificed for the " Glory of God,'* 
where persecution and proscription were held up as 
the insignia of reform and religion, where the altar 
smoked with human victims, where action and reac- 
tion, in impious ebb and flow, became the destruction 
of the land, and the ruin of its people, by sowing the 
seed of demoralization, whence grew up that irreli- 
gious hatred of the neighbour, which can so ill accord 
with the love of God, which bloody hypocrites or ma- 
niac-zealots believed, or would make others believe, 
could best be promoted by substituting force for per- 
suasion, and violence for meekness. 

It is not equally unnecessary to pass over the charge 
as it is made against the Catholic religion, for the un- 
charitable opponents of that creed, have in so many 
shapes and forms, on so many occasions, and on the 
authority of such various writers, endeavoured to con- 
nect it with persecution, that a particular defence of 
it seems not only necessary to the Catholic, but to the 
professors of other creeds, for if so monstrous a libel 
be left without refutation where rests the certainty 



108 



INQUISITION EXAMINED, 



that the open enemy of the Catholic religion may not 
be the covert foe of religion generally, or that under 
the pretext of rooting out what he calls error, and in- 
troducing what he deems reform, he may not be run- 
ning the mine from which he intends to blow up re- 
velation. 

The British reader can find no difficulty in under- 
standing how cne individual can exercise two high 
functions not necessarily connected with each other. 
The king of England is the chief executive olficer of 
the civil government of his country, he is also the vi- 
sible head of the established British or Protestant 
church. In like manner, is the Pope the visible head 
of the Catholic Church, and also the chief executive 
magistrate and reigning prince, over a territory con- 
stituting a part of Italy, of which Rome is the capital 
city, and the chief residence of the Pope. As the king 
of England, as a civil magistrate, may and occasion- 
ally does introduce into the policy whereby he mana- 
ges the civil concerns of his nation, matters, regula- 
tions, and ordinances, which he ought not, and per- 
haps could not, introduce- into the ecclesiastical poli- 
cy ; and as he may, as head of his church, impose re- 
gulations and laws for the government of its members, 
which it might be inconvenient or impossible to im- 
pose on his subjects, in virtue of his civil authority, so 
is it with the pope. He governs his principality in 
its civil concerns by such laws as the occasion may, 
in his estimation, demand. In the government of the 
church, he cannot act as caprice directs, he must 
herein act as the principles of religion, already laid 
down and established, require. This view cf this part 
of our subject is highly necessary to be understood 
and recollected, that in considering the conduct of the 
heads of the respective churches, it may put us in 
mind of the material distinction, whether the prince 
acted in his civil, or in his spiritual capacity. 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



109 



The first error respecting the Inquisition, is the 
supposition that it was instituted for the simple pro- 
tection of religion. I know not how far that might 
have been the pretext, but I am satisfied it was not 
the real motive. If the Roman Catholic w as the reli- 
gion of Christ, and so the Pope, the Clergy, and all 
the christian world, at one time held it to be, no hu- 
man agency could overthrow it, it had a promise which 
could not fail to be fulfilled, it had a security for its 
permanence which no artifice could abridge, it had an 
all-powerful arm to defend it, and could not require a 
bloody Inquisition for its support. This tribunal must 
have been erected by a state policy only, and that for 
civil purposes. We must, as I already proposed, ex- 
clude all belief in the infallibility of any man, as an ar- 
ticle of faith, otherwise we wiiP proceed blindfolded, 
and may loose our way. We must see in the Pope, a 
temporal prince at the head of an earthly kingdom, 
and also an ecclesiastic at the head of the Catholic 
Church; and in both situations, a man endowed very 
probably with more than common talents, and favour- 
ed very possibly, with more than a common share of 
grace, but yet a man who must feel in some degree 
the applicability to him of the expression "nil huma- 
num a me alienum puto," he had, doubtless, a share 
of those passions incidental to humanity; he had his 
fears, his cares, his anxieties, he may, for all I know, 
have been ambitious, vindictive, tyrannical; I have 
not studied his character, and pretend not to any 
knowledge of it. If the opposers of his religion can 
derive any advantage from attributing to him a full 
portion of the worst qualities of men filling high sta- 
tions, I shall leave it to others to defend him ; to my 
purpose it is not very material, for although he should 
be in fact what his enemies may represent him, yet my 
case can loose nothing by it. What his private cha- 
racter was may be matter of curiosity or of individual 
•concern; his situation as a personage in high public 

10 



110 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



station, is matter of public concern, and may be col- 
lected from the history of the times. 

The period in which Innocent the Third (the re- 
puted founder of the Inquisition) reigned, was anterior 
to the reformation of Luther, Christendom was nearly 
all Catholic, the Pope exercised, or attempted to ex- 
ercise, great authority, the princes of Europe, al- 
though his spiritual children, and in this point, his in- 
feriors, were very jealous of the authority he presumed 
to exercise, they were restiff, and often either mena- 
cing or rebellious. To these were added a host of 
minor enemies, the scismatics and reformers of that 
day, men who, by their superior address, had obtained 
-an influence not always to be despised for its insigni- 
ficance, and sometimes dangerous on account of its in- 
creasing authority. Sound policy would have dictated 
to the Pope to defend his person and his territories^ 
by placing an efficient barrier between himself and his 
enemies. This would have been the duty and the 
conduct of any other prince, and why not of Innocent 
the Third ? whether the Inquisition was the proper, 
the only, or the best defence he could have recourse 
to, whether it was, in his situation, justifiable, whether 
any danger or exigency could authorize it, or whether 
he, because head of the Catholic Church, was there- 
fore precluded from the institution of a tribunal, the 
like of which might in an after age be instituted by the 
head of another church, are questions I am not com- 
petent to decide, and which cannot, in any case, affect 
the issue of the present inquiry. If it be made to ap- 
pear a state measure, not dictated nor required by re- 
ligion, the ob ect with which I took up my pen will 
be attained. To effect this, it is only necessary to 
prove, that being opposed to religion, it could not be 
called for, or sanctioned by it. It was not, at any rate, 
a mere measure of caprice. Danger menaced : de- 
fence was the law of policy and of nature. 

France and England, those rival nations whose peo- 
ple drew their swords against each other before the 



INQUISITION EXAMINED* 



111 



era of Christianity, and sheathed them but when the 
decisive superiority of a victorious party dictated 
peace, or mutual exhaustion put an end to hostilities^ 
and who, regardless of treaties or good faith, threw 
away the scabbard whenever reinvigorated strength 
permitted, were now at war, Phiiip ruled over 
France ; John reigned in England : they were both 
Catholics. 

John was a bad son of the church; he had many 
faults, and few if any virtues: without morality or re- 
ligion, he was faithless, cruel, and tyrannical, his con- 
duct was a compound of equivocal courage, and un- 
disguised meanness; his obstinacy yielded but to his 
fears ; his inordinate pride but to his total want of re- 
solution in the presence of danger. He drew on him- 
self the displeasure of the Pope, who threatened to 
put him under an interdict ; and he, in return, threat- 
ened to put out the eyes, slit the noses, and crop the 
ears of any emissaries the Pope would send into Eng- 
land, with unfriendly views, John had powerful 
means of annoying an enemy, but he knew not how 
to use them : but for the rebellious disposition of his 
subjects whom he neither ks>ew how to suppress or 
conciliate, and the determined opposition of his barons, 
he would probably not have left to Martin Luther 
the work of reforming religion. His submission to 
the Pope, was mean, entire, and insincere. It how- 
ever gained him the pardon and friendship of his holi- 
ness. John continued obedient, although there was 
little doubt of his private jealousy of the papal autho- 
rity, or that he would fondly embrace an opportunity 
to retaliate the harsh treatment he suffered from the 
head of the church. 

The French king, no less rebellious than John had 
been, in utter defiance of the Pope's injunction and 
threat, and denying the right of Innocent to interfere 
in temporal concerns, invaded the possessions of king 
Jotjn. The French barons cordially joined their king 
in opposition to the Pope's mandate. Philip, thus sup* 



112 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



ported, laid siege to Chateau Gaillard, on the confine* 
of Normandy, which he took after a long and arduous 
siege, equally remarkable for the almost unparallelled 
bravery of the besiegers, and of the defenders. 

This rebellious spirit evinced by France and Eng- 
land, gave his holiness serious uneasiness, for although 
England had submitted to his authority, and a recon- 
ciliation had taken place with France, the Pope could 
not repose confidence in the sincerity of either. 

To the disguised enmity or doubtful friendship of 
France and England, Pope Innocent had to add the 
irreconcilable enmity of other opponents, persons of 
engaging address, persuasive talents, and desperate re- 
solution. However violent the defence which Inno- 
cent prepared for himself, however men may condemn 
it, it will find a full parallel in the character, conduct, 
and designs of the desperadoes who were opposed to 
him. Why the British people should, in after ages, 
take the conduct of this Pope, as a precedent for their 
own legislation, or why, having adopted it, they should 
resolve not only to exceed it in its worst features, but 
even to equal it in those in which misrepresentation 
had depicted it, is ftSta*^'^ or wny so 

blind to their own misdeeds, they should open a bat- 
tery on those of another, which could not fail to call 
home to themselves the universal odium. Their missiles 
may be said to have recoiled from the walls of the 
Vatican even until they struck against the chapel of 
St. Stephen's. 

I cannot do this subject more justice than by giving 
an extract from the works of the learned Dr. O'Leary, 
a divine who professed the most liberal and charitable 
opinions, was of the highest talents and finest educa- 
tion, a man whose name and character were familiar 
to the people of every part of Europe, respected and 
revered by all who had the happiness of his personal 
acquaintance, and admired by all who knew him but 
bv fame. His life and writings is an admirable com- 
mentary on the narrow and unsocial bigotry and on the 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



113 



vile laws which, to use his own language, speaking of 
himseif and the inquisitorial edicts of his native coun- 
try, " doom me to transportation with the common 
malefactor." So liberal and unprejudiced was he, 
with such open boldness did he define the rights the 
power, and pretentions of the Pope, that the weak 
Protestant and the weak Catholic alike trembled, the 
one in the hope of his conversion, the other in fear for 
his orthodoxy. But CTLeary was too great a man to 
be wrong, and too good, knowingly to quit the right 
path. The Pope, who would not pardon an impro- 
per attack on the head of the church, signified his high 
confidence in the integrity and virtue of the reverend 
Arthur O'Leary, by the most appropriate and un- 
doubted act of his approval, and which speaks volumes 
in support of my subject,— Mr. O'Leary was, by a pa- 
pal bull, elevated to the dignity of a bishop* 

" The Pope (says this Rev. divine) was in pos- 
session of a city which formerly gave birth to so many 
heroes, besides a good territory bestowed on him by 
several sovereigns. He thought it high time lo look 
about him, when all Europe was in one general blaze* 
The liberty of the gospel preached by Muncer and 
several other enthusiasts, thrjw all Germany into a 
flame, and armed boors against their sovereigns* As 
he was a temporal prince, he dreaded for his sove- 
reignty, as well as other crowned heads in his neigh- 
bourhood ; and the more so, as his soldiers were bet- 
ter skilled in saying their beads, than handling the 
musket. 

" Great events, the downfall of empires, and the 
rise or destruction of extraordinary characters, are 
commonly foretold in oracles, both sacred and pro* 
fane ; and he found himself in the same dubious and 
critical situation with Montezeuma, when the Span* 
iards landed in America. 

" Old prophecies foretell our fell at hand, 
" When bearded men in floating castles land*'* 

10* 



114 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



" Long before the reformation, the dimensions of his 
city were taken ; the line was extended over its walls ; 
and it was discovered that it was 4 the great city built 
on seven hills, the harlot which had made the kings of 
the ^arth drunk with her cup ; and that her sovereign 
was antichrist, the man of sin,' mentioned by St. Paul ? 
in his epistle to the Thessalonians. Wickliff, Huss, 
and Jerome of Prague, had laid down a rule, many 
years before, that, 6 Popes, princes, and bishops, in 
the state of mortal sin, have no power:' and a state 
of grace was, doubtless, incompatible with the charac- 
ter of Antichrist. Jerome of Prague, who was burn- 
ed afterwards at Constance, to show that Rome was 
the harlot of the Revelations, after beating a monk, 
and drowning another, dressed one day, a prostitute 
in a Pope's attire, with the three crowned cap, made 
of paper, on her head, and in her head-dress, without 
being so careful of the rest of her body, led the fe- 
male pontiff, half naked, in a procession through the 
streets of Prague, in derision of a religion professed by 
the magistrates. * 

mi Some well-bred divines there are, who justify such 
proceedings, on the principle that it was requisite, at 
that time, fc to cry aloud, and use a strong wedge to 
break the knotty block of popery.' I do not believe 
there is a well-bred Protestant living, who would ap- 
plaud either martyr or divine who would exhibit such 
a merry spectacle in the streets of Dublin or London ; 
or who would shed a tear for his loss, if, after exhibit- 
ing such a show, in Rome or Paris, he fell into the 
hands of the inquisition, or were sent to the gallies. 
The gospel truth is no enemy to decency. 

" St. Paul, in pleading his cause before Festus, did 
not inveigh against his vestal virgins, the adulteries of 
their gods, or the wickedness of his emperors. Let a 
religion of state be ever so false, the magistrate who 
professes it, will feel himself insulted, when it is at- 
tacked in a gross, injurious manner: and, if apologies, 
can be made for indecencies and seditious doctrines* 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 115 



under pretence of overthrowing idolatry, some allow- 
ance must be made for men who think themselves in- 
sulted by such attacks. 

" The Pope, then, as a sovereign prince, had every 
thing to dread, when the thrones of the German prin- 
Ges began to totter from the shocks of inspiration : but 
what still increased his alarms, was, the unfolding of 
the Revelations, which held him up to all Europe, as 
the Antichrist, the general enemy of christians, who 
should be destroyed. Lest any one should miss his 
aim, it was proved from the Revelations, that he was 
the beast with ten horns ; and, in bearing down such 
a game, the world was to be renewed, and the peace- 
ful reign of the millennium, during which Christ was 
to reign with the saints on earth, was to begin. The 
time was approaching. Old John Fox, the martyro- 
logist, says, that after long study and prayers, God had 
cast suddenly into his mind, by divine inspiration, that 
the forty-two months must be referred to the church's 
persecutions, from the time of John the Baptist. , This 
calculation was to bring on the Pope's destruction 
about the year sixteen hundred. Brightman was more 
precise, and foretold the final downfall of the Pope, in 
the year fifteen hundred and forty-six: others in fif- 
teen hundred and fifty-six : and others in fifteen hun- 
dred and fifty-nine. Luther came closer to the fa- 
mous era 5 and published his prophecy, in which it 
was revealed to him, that the Pope and the Turk 
would be destroyed in two years after the date of his 
oracle. This, certainly, was a close attack on the 
Pope, who, in all appearance, did not like to die so 
soon, even of a natural death. He apprehended the 
accomplishments of the oracles the more, as at that 
time, almost every one was inspired, and ready to do 
any thing for the destruction of Antichrist. 

" Alexander Ross, in his view of religion, describes 
numbers' of those prophets, and amongst the rest one 
Hermannus Sutor, a cobbler of Optzant, who profess- 
ed himself a true prophet, and the Messiah Son cf 



116 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



God ; a very dangerous neighbour for Antichrist ! 
This man, to receive the prophetic inspiration, 
stretched himself naked in bed ; and, after ordering a 
hogshead of strong beer to be brought close to him, 
began to drink in the source of inspiration, and to re- 
ceive the spirit by infusion ; when, on a sudden, 'he, 5 
to use the words of Alexander Ross, 'with a Stentor's 
voice and a horrid howling, among other things, often 
repeated this : ' Kill cut throats, without any quarter, 
kill all those monks, all those Popes. Repent, repent; 
for your deliverance is at hand.' However extraor- 
dinary such a character would appear now, yet at that 
time, inspiration was so frequent, that one would im- 
agine all Germany was a nation of prophets ; and 
Hermannus, who was afterwards put to death by 
Charles, Lord of Guelderland, had credit enough to 
make proselytes. 

" The Pope, thus aimed at, as an object of destruc- 
tion, from all quarters — and seeing, almost in every 
nation in Europe, a nursery of prophets foretelling his 
ruin, and animating the candidates for sanctity to un- 
dertake the pious task, began to tremble, not only for 
his territories, but, moreover, for his personal safety. 
He knew that the imaginations of his Italian subjects 
were naturally warm ; and that, if but one of them 
caught the prophetic flame, the stiletto w r ould soon be 
darted into Antichrist. He found imperial laws al- 
ready enacted, and as he was a temporal prince whose 
person was more exposed than any highwayman in 
Europe, he copied those laws into his directory; and 
erected the Inquisition as a barrier between himself 
and the formidable foes, who not only foretold his 
downfall, but encouraged their followers to fulfil the 
prediction. 

"The impartial reader, in tracing this formidable 
tribunal, will discover a political establishment^ and a 
temporal safeguard. None can infer from its institu- 
tion, that it is lawful by the principles of religion, to 
deprive a man of his life, precisely on account of his 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 117 



worship : and every one must acknowledge, that, if 
ever a prince, whose life and territories were in dan- 
ger, was authorized to take the severest precautions 
to secure both, no mortal could plead for greater in- 
dulgence in having recourse to rigorous measures, 
than one who united in his person the dignity of a 
prince, which at that time was both an object of envy 
and detestation to people who considered sovereignty 
as subversive of christian religion— and the character 
of a sovereign pontiff, which made him pass for an 
outlaw, and the great enemy of Christ, in whose de- 
struction the world was so deeply concerned. Let 
any person put himself in his case, and judge for him- 
self." 

The reader is now, I presume, pretty fully in pos- 
session of the motive with which Innocent the Third 
resorted to the Inquisition, as well as the nature of the 
provocation which impelled him to that severe mea- 
sure. Whether he deems it justifiable or not, he must 
see, that it was a transaction solely of the civil govern- 
ment, in which the ecclesiastical could not, at least so 
far as it was bloody, take any concern ; and in the ex- 
cesses of which, the Pope, as head of the church, 
could not take any concern, and in which, whatever 
may have been his pretentions, whatever may have 
been his personal conduct, he could not act so as to 
authorize the infliction of death or the privation of a 
limb, without violating the mild doctrine and establish- 
ed tenets of his religion. Some observations in sup- 
port of this assertion will be oiiered to the reader be- 
fore closing this subject. In fact, the Pope, as an ec- 
clesiastic, had no concern in the institution of the In- 
quisition at Rome, It originated with the civil gov- 
ernment, of which it is true the Pope is the chief or 
first executive officer, but in the administration of 
which government, the Pope, as head of the church 
especially when contrary to either the discipline or te- 
nets of the church, takes no concern. The king of Eng- 
land, by aid of his parliament or counsellors, orders the 



118 INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



banishment or execution of a Catholic bishop only be- 
cause the bishop believes in transubstantiation, but the 
king, as head of the church, promulgates no such doc- 
trine ; herein, he acts in his civil capacity only, and cer- 
tainly in opposition to the Protestant creed which pro- 
fesses the utmost toleration in religion. It is said of the 
king of England, and for what I know of every other 
king, that he never dies, because the law provides for 
his successor. The same may be not very improperly 
said of the head of the Catholic church ; for although 
there be a temporary vacancy of the papal chair dur- 
ing the time between the demise of one Pope and the 
election of another, yet the church is never for a mo- 
ment without a government. The High Court of 
Commission was not erected in England to protect the 
king as head of the church, for the church is always 
supposed to be in keeping so safe, so powerful, that no 
earthly machinations can destroy it, the High Court 
of Commission was erected by the civil authority for 
the protection of the king's person as first civil magis- 
trate of the nation. The Inquisition in Rome was not 
instituted for the protection of the Pope as head of the 
church, but by the civil government for his protection 
as first magistrate of the civil territory over which he 
reigns. The church would not be overthrown by the 
murder more than it would be by the natural death of 
Innocent the Third, it is not even certain that it would 
be injured thereby ; nor is it quite certain that it might 
not be benefitted. 



Those persons who have so industriously laboured, 
and often to promote their own private fortune, to 
fasten on the Catholic religion all that was censurable 
in the institution and in the acts of the Inquisition, 
have not confined themselves to imputing to the Cath- 
olic religion whatever excesses were committed try 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. I J 9 



that tribunal in Rome, where the government of the 
church and of the state were vested in the same per- 
son, and where it might easily be supposed that the 
transactions of the one might be influenced by those 
of the other, but they also charged to the same reli- 
gion the acts of inquisitions in every other Catholic 
country, where that tribunal had been erected, al- 
though the chiefs of such nations had no pretentions 
to be heads of the church, and were at most acknow- 
ledged to be its sons, and bad sons they often were, 
not only acting contrary to its dictates, but even mak- 
ing war on their spiritual father. 

The Inquisition was introduced into Spain from mo- 
tives similar to those which influenced Innocent the 
Third, the protection of the king and government 
against the evil designs of an enemy. The motive 
will by many be considered still more pressing on the 
Spanish government than on the Roman. The Pope's 
enemies were without his territories and beyond the 
control of his civil authority ; his efforts were directed 
to the purpose of excluding from his country, opinions 
which were deemed destructive of society and good 
morals, as well as of pure religion ; he wished to pre- 
serve his subjects from being infected by them. The 
enemies of the king of Spain were within his territory > 
and as deadly opposed to him as any enemy of the 
Pope could be to this prince. 

The Moors inhabited a part of Spain; they were 
Mahometans; their law, unlike that of the christians, 
was bloody, and the christians were the particular ob- 
jects of their vengeance and fury. So far from volun- 
tarily subjecting themselves to the christian govern- 
ment, they even meditated to place themselves over 
it; so far from being converts to the christian faith, 
they hoped to convert the christians to infidelity. 
Their argument would in all cases be enforced by the 
sword ; this was the principle of their government 
and the law of their sect. It is to be regretted that 
the christian princes were too much inclined to asimi- 



120 INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



lar resort ; but this was not the law of the bible. The 
government of Spain used great exertions to bring 
over the infidels to the true faith, but the means were 
too much in the character of despotic princes, and had 
often more of compulsion than of persuasion in them. 
It is not probable that any measure in the power of 
the christians would have converted the whole body 
of the Moors, or have made many real converts among 
them ; a considerable number did bow to the cross, 
but their conversion was the result oftener of fear than 
of conviction ; they apparently ceased to be Mahome- 
tans, but few of them really became christians. An 
attachment, at least political, to their old sect, was suf- 
ficiently apparent; an enmity to the christians was lit- 
tle less disguised. The Spanish christians suffered so 
much from the excesses of the infidels, and they again, 
so much from the christians, it became in a manner 
unavoidable, that one of the parties should be extir- 
pated or exiled. The Mahometans were worsted and 
banished, a circumstance which, whatever may be ad- 
vanced against its justice, has materially tended to the 
peace of Spain and of Europe. The Inquisition was 
resorted to as a powerful means of preventing the re- 
turn of the Moors. Dr. O'Leary, in his observations 
on the introduction of the Inquisition into Spain and 
Portugal, makes the following observations : 

" In these two kingdoms the Inquisition owes its 
origin to causes much similar to those which gave it 
rise at Rome ; but causes, however, which did not so 
immediately affect the sovereign, who was blended 
with the common mass of monarchs, without any pe- 
culiar distinction to expose him to the hatred of man- 
kind ; or to afford his assassin a plea of impunity, by 
alleging that he was the deliverer of the world, by 
ridding it of the enemy of the Son of God, described 
in the prophecies of Daniel, pointed out in the Reve- 
lations, and whose downfall was foretold at such a 
time by the most celebrated interpreters of Scripture* 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



121 



• 4 The Spaniards struggling for a long time with Ma- 
hornet's followers who had invaded their country, and 
reduced them not only to the most abject slavery, but 
moreover forced them to supply the fire of their lusts 
with continual fuel, by sending an annual tribute of 
christian virgins to their seraglios, made at last that 
great effort so memorable in history. 

" It is well known that before the defeat of the 
Moors, and their total expulsion from the Spanish do- 
minions, they were preparing underhand for war, and 
had their leaders already chosen. Banished for ever 
from a kingdom where they had trampled on the laws 
which all christians, and even heathen fathers deemed 
most sacred, a barrier to their return was erected; 
and, as by their own laws, every christian who has 
had a connexion with a Mahometan woman, is to pass 
through the tire, the tables were turned on themselves, 
and the expectants of an earthly paradise were threat- 
ened with the faggot, if they returried to initiate the 
children of christians into their mysteries." 

Let us make this case our own for a moment. Let 
us suppose that the sooty descendants of Africa, who 
did not invade this country, but who were dragged in- 
' to it against their will, should presume to treat the 
white population, as the Moors did the Spaniards, 
what would be the conduct of the Americans ? Would 
the legislature of Virginia enact any or what laws 
against the negroes who meditated or organized rebel- 
lion, would the Virginia people have any objection to 
an. auto de fe, were it proposed as a means of preser- 
ving their properties, their lives and their liberty ? 
Would the pious people of New-England institute no 
inquisition in case the negroes finding themselves de- 
feated in the south, should try their fortune in the- 
east ? Would the bible society folks, with christian pa- 
tience and resignation, unresistingly submit to such an 
enemy ? They would not, and they ought not. I am 
» not prepared with an opinion as to the length which 

11 



122 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



reason and justice should dictate as a defence against 
such an enemy. 

Many of the Catholic clergy who naturally feared 
the return of the infidels, were easily prevailed on to 
take an active part in the transactions of the Inquisi- 
tion. Without pretending to approve or excuse their 
having done so, it should not be passed over unnoticed, 
that these ecclesiastics received their commissions 
from the civil authority, and acted as officers or ma- 
gistrates of the king. It would be unfair to charge 
their acts under commissions thus derived, to a reli- 
gion of which they were the ministers. As well might 
the acts of Cranmer and other British prelates who 
held civil offices in ^England, as well might the acts of 
the Protestant clergy who now hold civil commissions 
from the British king, be all charged to religion. It 
seems unreasonable to accuse religion in any form, 
with acts which it disavows. Sueh charge amounts to 
a defence of those civil despotic governments to which 
we owe, that man is not every where free : it is an 
exculpation of the guilty, it is an accusation of the 
innocent. 

It is the interest of religion to keep the regulation 
of its concerns apart from those of the civil govern- 
ment, as it otherwise would be exposed to a loss of 
the independence so necessary to its purity. The al- 
liance of the civil with the religious concerns of the 
people, is courted by the civil power, and often for 
purposes which religion would reject. It never tends 
to the extension of civil liberty, but always strength- 
ens the civil arm, and that to the disadvantage of the 
people, and often to the degradation or corruption of 
the clergy. Religion can maintain itself apart from 
the civil government, save that protection to its mem- 
bers and congregations, which, as a peace preserving 
measure, is extended to individuals and societies ge- 
nerally ; and it has preserved itself even when that 
protection was denied. The connexion between 
church and state seldom honours or exalts religion ; 



INQUISITION EXAMINED, 



123 



the benefit is to the civil government only, and is sel- 
dom courted by the government which is in itself 
good, because that which is good confides in its own 
virtue. The governments of England, France, and 
Spain have sought an alliance with the clergy, whom 
they endeavoured, and too often successfully, to cor- 
rupt; the government of the United States relying on 
its own purity as its support, has not attempted any 
connexion with the church, and is, I will venture to 
assert, the most stable in the world. These cases 
produce particular illustrations that the alliance of 
church and state is not necessary to the proper sub- 
sistence of either, and may be injurious. In England 
it produced the High Court of Commission, in Spain 
the Inquisition, in Ireland the Penal Code ; in Ame- 
rica, its absence produced civil and religious lib<- 
erty. 

Religious sects must be tried by their own laws and 
tenets, if we would come at a true picture of their con- 
dition. The Roman Catholic church makes a dis- 
tinction between fundamental articles of faith, and ex- 
terior points of discipline. " The former are consi- 
dered as immutable truths, and regard the whole 
church. The latter are frequently limited, with re- 
spect both to time and place, and have no force what- 
ever upon individuals until they are received and pub- 
lished in the several parts of Christendom ; by the civil 
power, in what regards civil matter ; and by the ec- 
clesiastical, in what appertains to the church."* From 
this it may be collected, that the Inquisition, if a fun- 
damental tenet of the Catholic church, must have been 
immutable, and its reception obligatory on every Ca- 
tholic, its institution a necessary and indispensible ap- 
pendage to the Catholic religion wherever that reli- 
gion was introduced. That such was not the case is 
sufficiently proven by the fact, that it has not been in- 
troduced into every Catholic country, that many of 



* Milner, Letter 4, to a Prebendary. 



J 24 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



the Catholic countries know nothing about it,* that it 
never was introduced into Catholic England. The 
persecutions during the reign of Mary was not only 
not authorized by the Pope or the clergy, but oppo- 
sed by both. Cardinal Pole, the Pope's legate, con- 
demned the queen's conduct in a council of Catholic 
bishops held in England during her reign, and the 
Catholic clergy boldly supported this council, in pub- 
lic discourses from the pulpit. Would this be so, had 
a bloody persecution been a tenet of the Catholic 
faith? Would the clergy oppose a tenet of their reli- 
gion at a time when such opposition could not benefit 
them in any manner, and when in fact it exposed them 
to the anger and to the malice of the queen. This 
single circumstance is so conclusively in support of 
the position I have thus far laboured to maintain, that 
no dispassionate reader can for a moment remain 
doubtful on the subject. I can bring a multitude of 
arguments and evidences in support of the above ; I 
am, however, restrained by the hope that it is unne- 
cessary, and by a desire to bring my subject to a close, 
I heartily regret the necessity of its introduction, and 
I will quit it, in the conviction that, even in this small 
work, enough is offered to silence, if not to shame> 
those who, from interested motives, would libel reli- 
gion; and to convince all, that the bloody acts of the 
Inquisition are not founded on any tenet of the Catho- 
lic church, "Give me leave, (says Dr. Milner) to 
observe to you, that the practices and the very exis- 
tence of the Inquisition, has as little connection with 
the Catholic religion, as they have with my history of 
Winchester, in which they are not, to my recollection, 
once mentioned." 

There is an inquisition which is necessary to reli- 
gion, which, in order to distinguish it from that so ge- 



* " Several Catholic countries, dreading the miseries which 
such a tribunal would produce, persevered in refusing- to admit 
it Rev. J. Sturges, Protestant Prebendary of Winchester, 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



125 



nerally reprobated, I would denominate the religions. 
It belonged to the Catholic church at all times, as well 
before as during and since the time of Innocent the 
Third; it is in operation, and is acted on by all reli- 
gious sects however various or opposing their tenets s 
differing in degrees of rigidity, and sometimes in form, 
but, in principle, the same. This is an inquiry into 
the practices and lives of the individual members, 
particularly as respects a conformity to established 
tenets. The proceedings are always marked by for- 
bearance and charity, the penalty seldom exceeding 
reprimand, and never reaching to the privation of life 
or limb.* This inquisition so necessary to religion, 
and conducive to its purity, is also admirably calcula- 
ted to promote and preserve morality. It is a fair 
commentary on the Inquisition to which I have hither- 
to principally alluded : they are so unlike that a per- 
son of the least observation must see they are not of 
the same stock: the counterfeit could not easily be 
mistaken for the genuine. 

There are known and established principles apper- 
taining to the Catholic religion, which go decidedly to 
prove, that the Catholic religion could not sanction, 
much less institute, an inquisition at once cruel and 
bloody. Among these principles are the following: 

1 . The church disclaims the right of the sword, and 
the use of fines and confiscations to promote her spi- 
ritual ends.t 

2. The church has no power over life or limb. J 

3. The last resource of the church is onty acanoni* 
cal censure. Those censures she never denounces, 
but against her own rebellious children, reared up in 
her own bosom. § 

It would be a useless expenditure of time to dwell 
as long as I might, on the above principles, with a mere 

* 44 The church has no power over life, limb, the rights of 
sovereigns, the property of individuals, or any temporal concern 
whatsoever.' 1 " ,T eary, 

i Lb. p. 185. \ lb. p. 200. k lb, 207, 



126 



INQUISITION EXAMINES. 



view to prove that they are sanctioned and received 
by the cturch. It will be well enough to do so, when 
points are brought to issue by their denial, or their be- 
ing disputed by others. I am satisfied, when this will 
be the case, to bear the onus probandu 

It should however be here observed generally, that 
although Catholic councils condemned heresies, they • 
never touched the persons of the accused, but left 
them at liberty, or to be disposed of by the civil au- 
thority; many are the instances wherein the church 
authorities, and individual ministers, have interfered 
with the civil authorities, although not always success- 
fully, to save the criminals from the rigour of the laws. 
We have seen that Cardinal Pole, the Pope's le- 
gate in England, opposed the sanguinary course of 
Queen Mary in England, although the prosecutions of 
this queen against her Protestant subjects, were often- 
er for the suppression of treasonable conspiracies 
against herself, than for the exercise of their religion, 
and in this respect unlike the persecutions of Queen 
Elizabeth against her loyal Catholic subjects, which 
were in almost every instance, for the suppression of 
their religion. St. Austin zealously craved mercy of 
the African governors for the Donatists, a sect remark- 
able for their atrocities and cruelties. Nor were the 
church authorities unmindful of the excesses commit- 
ted by some of the clergy. A council of the church 
refused to admit to its deliberations any bishop char- 
ged with persecuting the Priscillianists, beyond the 
mild measures of the church. Two Spanish bishops 
who petitioned the tyrant Maximus to put Priscillians 
to death, were themselves banished; yet there were no 
heretics more dangerous in a state than the Priscil- 
lians, whose maxim was to swear and forswear them- 
selves rather than betray their secrets. 

The councils of Toledo and Lateran* condemn the 
\ise of violence to enforce belief, and reject bloody 
executions on the score of religion. 



* O'Leary. 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



127 



The Popes themselves opposed the introduction of 
the Inquisition into Venice. What then becomes of 
the assertion, that persecution is a fundamental tenet 
of the Catholic church ? It may just as well be said of 
the Protestant ; in truth it is not a tenet of either. 

" The spirit of the church (says the Abbe Fleury) was 
in such a manner, the spirit of meekness and charity, 
that she prevented as much as in her power, the death 
of criminals and even of her most cruel enemies. You 
have seen how the lives of the murderers of the mar- 
tyrs of Aunania were saved. You have seen how 
much the church detested the indiscreet zeal of those 
bishops, who persecuted the heresiarch Priscillian to 
death. In general, the church saved the lives of all 
criminals, as far as she had power." 

The following from Dr. O'Leary is strong evidence 
that whatever may have been the acts of kings, gov- 
ernments, or priests, the church never sanctioned cru- 
elty, torture, or bloody executions, and could not have 
any part in the Spanish, Portuguese, or any other In- 
quisition. 

" If in after ages (says the Doctor) some popes and 
bishops deviated from the plan of meekness and mo- 
deration, their conduct should not involve a conse- 
quence injurious to the principles of the Catholic 
church, which condemns such proceedings. The reli- 
gion of Catholics and Protestants con temns frauds, 
drunkenness, revenge, duelling, perjury, &c. Some 
of their relaxed and impious writers have even at- 
tempted not only to palliate but to apologize for such 
disorders. The children of the christian religion daily 
practice them: is the christian religion accountable 
for the breach of its laws ?" 

General councils have never presumed on such 
power as is assumed by the British Parliament. The 
councils are bound by a law that is given them from 
above, and the validity of which they acknowledge ; in 
this respect, they are subiect to a controlling power. 
It is not so with the parliament. Cromwell, the min- 



128 



INQUISITION EXAMINED.. 



ister of Henry the Eighth, demanded of the judges, 
whether a person could be attainted, without giving 
him any trial, or citing him to appear before parlia- 
ment. The judges replied, that no inferior court 
could act in that arbitrary manner; but the parlia- 
ment being the supreme judicature, their proceedings 
could not be called in question, but must remain good 
in law. 

Rescripts of popes do not constitute articles of faith. 
More properly might it be said that a royal British pro- 
clamation or an act of the British Parliament consti- 
tutes an article of Protestant faith: for the king is 
head of the church, and the parliament is omnipotent. 



Religious tenets apart, there are rational evidences, 
and plain deductions, strongly, nay conclusively, in 
support of the position, that religion had not and could 
not have any agency in the sanguinary decrees of the 
Inquisition. 

Had the Inquisition been connected with religion, 
as a fundamental tenet, it would not remain for Inno- 
cent the Third to discover that it was incumbent on 
the head of the church, as the administrator of the 
law, to put the Inquisition in operation. It would 
have been attended to by some, or by all the Popes 
who governed the church during twelve centuries be- 
fore the elevation of Innocent the Third ; and if it had 
not been a tenet of the church, the Pope not of his 
own free will makes it one. " AH the Popes* bulls 
from the time of St. Peter, to the end of ages, cannot 
make an article of faith for Roman Catholics, without 
the acceptance of the Universal church; and the 
church has no power over the temporals of kings, 
much less to command any thing against the laws of 
God. 

Catholics never follow an arbitrary doctrine. The 
standard is fixed ; the boundaries are prescribed, and 



INQUISITION EXAMINES. 129 



the Pope himself cannot remove them : they consider 
him as head of the church — subordination in every so- 
ciety, requires pre-eminence in its rulers, but his will 
is not their creed."* 

Had the Inquisition been a tenet of Catholic faith, 
every Catholic prince and people would be bound to 
adopt it, yet how many countries have either neglect- 
ed or refused to do so. It was not known before the 
time of Innocent the Third, not while the entire chris- 
tian world was Catholic, not until seisms and heresies 
sprang up. England did not adopt it at any time, not 
even during the reigo of John, who was a contempo- 
rary of Innocent the Third; nor during the reign of 
five Henrys, five Edwards, and two Richards, during 
all which reigns England was Catholic, nor does it ap- 
pear that they were required to adopt it. Will it be 
supposed that being required to introduce it, they re- 
fused ? Why then was not John, when he made the 
most entire submission to the Pope, been required to 
introduce it? Why did not Mary introduce it ? She 
was not too tender-hearted, or too sparing of the lives 
of her subjects ; on the contrary, she was so bloody 
and unrelenting, she might stand competition with the 
worst of the inquisitors, however cruel or fierce : she 
did indeed set up an inquisition, but it was not by pa- 
pal authority, and although it was that of a Catholic 
princess against her Protestant subjects, yet was it not 
Romish, but strictly British, differing from those of the 
preceding and succeeding reigns only in this, that it 
directed its violence against a different class of the 
subjects. The British persecutions, whether by Ca- 
tholic or Protestant princes, whether against Protes- 
tant or Catholic subjects, were Equally dishonourable 
to humanity, and opposed by the mild code left on 
earth by that God who was himself all mildness and 
forbearance. It gave an argument to the Deist, ren- 
dered the civil government hated, and placed the cha- 



* O'Learv. 



130 



INQUISITION EXAMINED* 



racter of the clergy in no envious light. Mr. Huimre, 
who was politically a Protestant, and who assails the 
Catholics with indecent violence, makes the following 
remarks on the sect to which he ostensibly adhered : 

" Though the Protestant divines had ventured to 
renounce opinions, deemed certain for so many ages, 
they regarded in their turn, the new system so cer- 
tain, that they could bear no contradiction with re- 
gard to it ; and they were ready to burn in the same 
flames, from which they themselves had so narrowly 
escaped, every one that had the assurance to oppose 
them." 

Whatever may have been the opinion of the Pope, 
it is sufficiently evident, the Catholic people ever 
ready to obey the tenets of the Church, have never 
acted under the impression, that the Inquisition was 
a religious institution, or that its ordinances were 
binding on them, for they have, in every country, in- 
veighed against it, except when silenced by the iron 
hand of civil power. W e have the authority of Mon- 
tague, that the English Catholics were loud in their 
execrations of the persecutions of the Protestants by 
the Inquisition of queen Mary ; yet they were not 
spared on that account, when Elizabeth's Inquisition 
was turned against themselves. I hazard nothing in 
saying, that were Pope Leo to send an army of bish- 
ops to the United States of America* in order to in- 
stitute an inquisition, an army of Catholics could be 
quickly found to resist the unchristian attempt. 

The clergy were no less ready than the laity to in- 
veigh against the encroachments of the Pope, which 
would not be the case could he produce the sanction 
of the church in support of his acts.* In the submis- 

* "Admitting- as I have explicitly and repeatedly done, that 
pontiffs, like other men, were liable to the self-love and passions 
of human nature, it would be a greater miracle than any record- 
ed in holy writ, if some of them had not abused both their spiri- 
tual supremacy, and their temporal principality, to the gratifica- 
tion of their ambition and avarice, Some abuses of this natirrr 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



131 



sion paid by so large a portion of the christian world 
to the Pope, as its universal head, and in the long 
continued duration of their obedience to the spiritual 
guide, with such strong incitements to shake it off, and 
so few worldly inducements to continue it, controver- 
tists have found arguments so strong in defence of 
Roman Catholic tenets, that the most learned and 
zealous of the reformers have been vastly embarrassed 
to account for this obedience on any other principle, 
than that of its orthodoxy. That it was not " blind obe- 
dience," may be inferred from the repeated opposi- 
tion which the Pope met from the Catholics of all 
countries, whenever he required a submission to or- 
dinances to which thev did not feel themselves bound 
to yield obedience, yet these disobedient children of 
the church were not condemned as heretics, nor even 
branded as scismatics, a circumstance in itself a con- 
clusive evidence, that such conduct was not inconsis- 
tent with pure religion, and a just submission to its 
fundamental tenets. Were the inquisition one of these 
fundamental tenets, we would not find the Catholics 
every where condemning or opposing it; were it a 
fundamental tenet, those Catholics who, in all ages, 
suffered such severe persecutions because they would 
not relinquish their faith, would be found clinging to 
it, with all the pious zeal and holy adhesion with 
which they stuck by those tenets which they deemed, 
and which the church pronounced, to be fundamental. 
The church has not pronounced that a belief in the 
inquisition is an article of Catholic faith, the Pope has 
not maintained such doctrine, the Catholics have 
never heard such, except from those Protestants who 
knew nothing of the subject, or who, actuated by sel- 



I have recorded, not in terms of approbation, as you suppose I 
was bound to do, but of strong- censure, and I have shown, that 
they were resisted and condemned by the princes, prelates, and 
writers of those times, no less than they are at present." 

Dr. Mtiner io Dr. Sturges, Let 2. 



132 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



fish motives, and hellish design, gave rise to a libel of- 
fensive to God, injurious to religion, destructive of 
morality, and of which the authors should be ashamed. 
If there be yet a person who can or will stand for- 
ward in support of the position, that a belief in the 
inquisition is (as Dr. Sturges would have it) an article 
of Catholic faith, then I can but regret the existence 
of an error which I know not how to remove, but 
which I believe one in ten thousand Protestants would 
not believe were they but to reflect on the subject. 
" The most monstrous absurdity that ever met with 
apologists in church or state, is the misdirected zeal 
that punishes the body for the sincerity of an erro- 
neous conscience ; whereas no person deserves more 
the severity of human laws, than the imposter who 
betrays it. The divines themselves, whose forced in- 
terpretations of scripture, and theological disputes, 
have armed sovereigns against their subjects, agree 
that no person can act against the immediate dictates 
of an erroneous conscience. Hence the Jew who is 
under a conviction that Christ is not God, would be 
guilty of gross idolatry, if from motives of worldly in- 
terest he worshipped him with the christians.* " In- 
deed the falsehood of this assertion (that persecution 
is a tenet of the Catholic church) without the neces- 
sity of any proof from me, glares in the face of our 
(Protestant) nobility and gentry who have made the 
tour of Europe, and who are conscious of having resi- 
ded with as much peace and security in the Papal 
city of Rome as they have done in the Protestant 
city of Geneva. "t 

The doctrine that the Catholic religion is in itself 
fundamentally cruel and sanguinary, is one great stay 
of the British monarchy, the chief prop of the aristo- 
cracy, the title of the British church to its tithes, and 
estates, and privileges, the sum and history of the pe- 
nal code enacted against Catholics. This doctrine 



* G'Leary. 



f Miloer. 



INQUISITION EXAMINEB. 



133 



was imported into the British colonies in America. 
" History and experience prove that this outcry a- 
gainst Catholics, as persecutors, is generally heard 
from men of intolerant principles, who make use of 
it as a pretext for persecuting them." It may be ho- 
ped, it must be, that the men of America will not 
swallow this poisonous drug. Americans should send 
it back to the " mother country," as they sent back 
the red coated minions of tyranny, or they should 
fliug into the sea, as they did the British cargoes of 
'Jea. 



Americans, I have performed the task I proposed 
to myself, in this essay ; I did so, as well as slender 
talents, and the little time I could apply to it, would 
permit. I did not write for the Englishman, but for 
yon. The well bred Englishman needs no instruc- 
tion on this point, he does not, for a moment, believe 
that the inquisition in Spain, or the high court of com- 
mission in England, had ever emanated from revealed 
religion, as practised by either Catholic or Protestant, 
he condemns both inquisitions with one condemna- 
tion. The illiterate or nearly illiterate Englishman, 
being kept in a state of absolute ignorance, or what is 
perhaps worse, an instruction fitted and limited to the 
level of that poison which is administered by his own 
government, is incapable of discovering his error, or 
ridding himself of a deep rooted prejudice, and will so 
remain until some great political and national change 
in the conduct of his rulers, or in the form of his gov- 
ernment, will dissolve a charm by which he seems 
spell-bound, and relieve the nation from the incubus 
that oppresses it. Until some great change will take 
place in the general education in England, it will be 
useless in an humble individual to attempt an over- 
throw of the errors under which Englishmen labour. 

Americans, for you these pa^es are chiefly inten- 
ded. You are an enlightened people, literature and 

12 



134 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



science are laid open to you all, with an unsparing 
hand, you are free, you have rid yourselves of the 
misgovernment under the pressure of which you also 
laboured, but you have in vain rid yourselves of the 
chain which bound you in slavery, if you will not also 
cure the festering wound it inflicted. A hatred of po- 
pery or of any sect or creed, is unworthy of freemen, 
it is contrary to pure religion and sound reason, and 
is a character of barbarity. To believe that a religion, 
which endured so long, in so many countries, and un- 
der every form of government, in the sunshine of pros- 
perity, and under the scourge of persecution, could 
be constitutionally bloody, is ridiculous, is an assump- 
tion opposed by revelation, and unsupported by an 
atom of evidence. I am desirous that liberality, liber- 
ty, and religion should, in this regenerated land, go 
hand in hand, that practices might square with pro- 
fessions, that, while we profess to enjoy civil and reli- 
gious liberty, we should be slow in attaching to any 
portion of the citizens, sentiments which if really en- 
tertained, would justly exclude them from society, 
and make them proper objects of an outlawry. 

1 have, in my first page, said that the government 
of the United States is not chargeable, directly or in- 
directly, with the erection of any civil tribunal, to 
judge or control the consciences of men. In closing 
my little work, I very willingly again bear evidence to 
this truth : but, would wish to be understood, as ap- 
plying it simply to the general government. My ac- 
quaintance with the constitutions or laws of the indi- 
vidual states, is too limited to enable me treat of each 
of them, as fully as I could wish, and as my subject 
seems to demand. 

I am very willing to suppose, nay to believe, that, 
where matter inconsistent with perfect liberty of con- 
science has found its way into the laws of any of the 
individual states, it was owing to inadvertence. It will 
be well for the representatives of the people in the 
several states, to inquire how far such has been the 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



135 



case. The public opinion would doubtless sanction 
the repeal of every such law. 

I have (page 1 1) alluded to the Quakers of Penn- 
sylvania and the Catholics of Maryland, as exceptions 
to the spirit of persecution exercised, too generally, 
against each other, by the early settlers of British 
America: I alluded to the persecutions of christians 
by christians. The observation will I presume stand 
good as to both these States. It is however to be la- 
mented, that in Maryland, a test law, (not exclusively, 
if hi any degree,, the work of Catholics) excludes 
from civil offices, persons not professing Christianity. 
I can see no rational motive, no just pretension, for 
excluding the Jew from civil as w^ell as religious liber- 
ty, whether he was born in the United States, or, be- 
ing born elsewhere, became a citizen by adoption, and 
of his own free will. Curse on the law which gainsays 
the noble axiom that declares, that all men are crea- 
ted equal, that they are endowed by their Creator 
with certain unalienable rights, that among these, are 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. " The Jew 
has only to swear that he believes in the christian re- 
ligion, and he is admitted to all the rights of a free citi- 
zen, although in his declaration he deposes to a false- 
hood. In this respect, the Jew in Maryland is situa- 
ted, as the Catholic is in England, and the Protestant 
in Spain. Does the law punish a Jew, because he 
adheres to a faith in which he conscientiously be- 
lieves ; and reward with the high premium of civil 
liberty, the reprobate who can swear to a falsehood. 
Are proscription and degradation to be attendant on. 
error, honours and preferment to be squandered on 
the perjurer ? 

The constitution of the State of New- York was 
formed in the year 1777. The last clause of it em- 
powering the legislature to enact laws for the natura- 
lization of foreigners, contained a condition, which 
would preclude Catholics from being admitted to citi- 
zenship, by virtue of any such lawc The legislature 



J3G 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



did not act on it, it remained, like a dead statute, for 
more than fort) years, a disgraceful appendage to the 
first charter of liberty, which the freemen of New- 
York made for themselves. The new constitution 
contains no such provision, nor any on that subject, 
the general law being deemed sufficient for that pur- 
pose. Within the last twenty years, the electors of 
the city of New-York sent a Roman Catholic to the 
State legislature. On his presenting himself in the 
Capitol of the State, and proposing to enter on the 
duties assigned him by his constituents, he found that, 
although a native American, he could not be admitted 
to the State legislature, without abjuring his religion. 
To his honour be it said, he declined doing so ; and 
to the honour of the legislature be it said, that a law 
promptly and unanimously passed, by which the ob- 
stacle was removed. In their association with this citi- 
zen, the other members of the legislature found no- 
thing to contaminate their morals, or to disturb their 
patriotism. The New- York constitution and statute- 
book are no longer disgraced by any law offensive or 
injurious to any class of citizens. In this, as in other 
respects, it stands a bright example worthy of imita- 
tion by the sister States. 

The constitutional provisions yet in force in the 
States of North Carolina and New-Jersey, bear hard 
on the Roman Catholics who reside in these States; 
in neither of which can a Catholic hold a civil em- 
ployment under the government, without an act of 
previous apostacy, which no wise government should 
ever require of the citizen It is but a hire to the 
w r eak, a bait for the unprincipled, the honest Catholic 
will not accept it ; and he who is too ready to swallow it, 
should be treated with suspicion, for he who can put a 
price on his religion, will be at least a^ ready to do the 
like with his country. The person who can deny his 
faith to secure the comforts of worldly wealth or gran- 
deur, will even sell his country for a u mess of pot- 
tage." It was said that " the British Catholics, between 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



137 



their fellow subjects and the throne, are like the for- 
lorn hope between two armies : they are doomed to 
civil destruction between both." The Catholics in 
North Carolina and New-Jersey are not in as dange- 
rous a situation as they would be in England, and will 
not require as many years of ineireetuai petitioning to 
the legislature lor redress of grievance. I feel satis- 
fied that a proper and respectful appeal to the legisla- 
tures of these States would be as promptly and as fa- 
vourably attended to as was the case in New-York. 
God rejects a homage which the heart belies ; the 
State should be cautious how it may receive a similar 
homage from the man who tenders it perhaps deceit- 
fully in return for pelf. Christ does not choose for 
subjects but those who enlist voluntarily. What se- 
curity is there that those who deny a faith in which 
they were educated, to get possession of advantages 
from which they were on account of that faith, exclu- 
ded, are not hypocrites. Does the conformist sin, and, 
if he does, is not the Stat e accessary ? Faith is a gift of 
God ; how dare man provide a penalty on those who 
conscientiously profess it. If heresy should not be 
punished, neither should any religious tenet be con- 
demned, or its votaries proscribed, by the civil law. 

A recent document has just come to my hand, 
which, had it been of earlier date, and have reached 
me sooner, I would have noticed in another part of 
this work, and have extracted more largely from it 
than 1 now conveniently can. This document is da- 
ted Charleston, (S. C.) Oct. 8, 1325, and purports to 
be, an address, u to the Roman Catholic inhabitants of 
the Canadas, Nova Scotia, and other Roman Catho- 
lic sub ects in America, of the king of Great Britain 
and Ireland,'' by the Right Rev. Dr. England, Catho- 
lic bishop of Charleston. 

The name of Dr. England has been frequently 
before the American public, and his character is well 
remembered in Ireland, his native country. In reli- 
gion, he is mild but firm, liberal yet orthodox ; as a 

.12* 



138 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



scholar, he is highly accomplished ; as a preacher, he 
displays uncommon eloquence ; as a patriot, he is 
distinguished ; as a Catholic, and as a man, he would 
be as quick to deny the power of the Pope to perse- 
cute the Protestant, as he properly is prompt in inveigh- 
ing against the British government for persecuting the 
Catholic subjects. This respectable prelate is good 
authority for whatever he advances ; bold in support 
of truth in his native country, where power threaten- 
ed to overthrow and ruin him, he is forbearing and 
patient in America, where no terror opposes, and no 
penal law hangs over him; he has all the undisguised 
candour of O'Leary, the solid penetration of Milner, he 
is their equal in piety, and perhaps their superior in the 
pulpit. Addressing the Catholic inhabitants of Cana- 
da, this prelate says, "why are you now free from 
persecution at this side of the Atlantic ? I will tell 
you, because you are neighbours of our glorious re- 
public." This compliment to America will be duly 
appreciated, and should set every American on the in- 
quiry, whether there exists any law derogatory to the 
character of a "glorious republic," whether there is 
practiced in the; education of the rising generation, 
any thing that might make the citizens disunited, 
merely because they disagree in speculative points of 
religious doctrine. 

Dr. England, after telling us, that, "the relaxations 
which Britain made in her worse than heathen code 
pf persecution, were made through fear, without me- 
rit ; with a bad grace, when she could not avoid ma- 
king them," gives us an enumeration of civil offices 
from which the Catholics of Ireland are excluded at 
this day, hut to all which they would be eligible, 
could they conscientiously conform to the Protestant 
religion as established by law, or would they in defi- 
ance of conscience, swear to the orthodoxy of the 
thirty-nine articles. There are two paths either of 
which, although they seem to be in opposite directions, 
lead the convert with equal certainty to royal favour, 
the one is conviction ; the other, perjury. 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



139 



" They (the Irish Catholics) cannot (says Dr. Eng- 
land) be Privy Counsellors, Masters of the Rolls, 
Judges in the King's Bench, Judges in the Common 
Pleas, Barons of the Exchequer, Secretary at War, 
Lords of the Admiralty, Lords in Parliament, Secre- 
tary of State, Chancellor of the Exchequer, President 
or Fellow of any College in any University, Secreta- 
ry for the Colonies, Governor of a Colony, Lord 
Lieetenant of Ireland, Attorney General of England, 
or Attorney General of Ireland, Solicitor General, 
King's Counsel, Member of any College of Physicians 
in England, Mayor of any City, Chief Magistrate of 
any Town Corporate, Member of the House of Com- 
mons, Sheriff of any County or City, Director of the 
Bank of England, Director of the Bank of Ireland, 
President of the Board of Trade— nor in either of an 
hundred other offices, which it would tire one to enu- 
merate and you to read. They cannot endow any 
church, bequeath any property for any benefit to 
their religion, nor for any charity connected there- 
with.— They cannot establish any glebe for the main- 
tainance of their clergy, they cannot confer any lite- 
rary degrees upon their children in their schools or 
colleges, they have no share in the management of the 
funds granted for the education of the poor, but those 
funds are uniformly placed in the hands, and under 
the control of those hostile to the Catholic tenets, and 
who meanly use a variety of indirect and perplexing 
modes for drawing the poor Catholics, by their wants, 
to sell the religion of their children. The Catholic 
clergy are insulted and vilified on a thousand occa- 
sions, and in all party trials the Protestant Sheriffs, 
who return Juries, not by ballot, but by selection, are 
generally charged with being partial." 

The Bishop says to the Catholics of Canada, " you 
have, where you dwell, perfpct religious freedom." 
Could he say so much to the Catholics of North Caro- 
lina and New-Jersey? It should here be observed, 
that the laws which oppress Catholics in the above 



140 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. * 



States, are not directed against the foreigner, but 
equally operate to the disadvantage of the native, al- 
though he or his father may have fought and bled in 
defence of their country, and laboured seven years to 
effect its independence. 

The Bishop proceeds: " The Protestant dissenters 
in Great Britain and Ireland are also seriously op- 
pressed, though compared with the Catholics their 
sufferings are trifling and light; yet they ought not to 
be subjected to any penalty or inconvenience for pro- 
fessing the religion of their choice. But to shut our 
eyes to the gross, ridiculous and monstrous tyranny of 
a Protestant government, saying, that every man has a 
right to be led by his own conscience only in matters of 
religion, and yet cruelly punishing men for the exer- 
cise of this conceded right. You will agree with me 
in the principle, that God gave to no government spi- 
ritual or temporal, a commission to inflict bodily or 
political punishment upon man for mere religious er- 
ror. He reserves the infliction of such punishment 
as the obstinate heretic or the criminal infidel may 
deserve* to his own tribunal. He gives to the church 
authority to teach his doctrine, to administer his Sa- 
craments, to regulate her discipline — and by spiritual 
censures to punish her refractory members. The 
people he leaves the right to constitute their govern- 
ment ; upon the government he imposes the obliga- 
tion of preserving peace and securing property. But 
to neither has he committed the decision of man's 
eternal destiny; this he reserves for himself; to neith- 
er has he given a commission to propagate his doc- 
trine by cruelty, but to all he has given a command to 
love one another." 

Americans, there are rights naturally inherent, of 
which the citizen cannot properly be deprived by any 
government, and which cannot be alienated by the 
citizen himself, without committing a violent act of 
self-debasement. Foremost of these rights, stands 
that of serving the God of all, by such forms, ceremo- 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



141 



nies, and agreeably to such tenents as the individual 
conscientiously believes to be incumbent. Any law 
to prevent the exercise of religion, to regulate its 
forms, to grant exclusive rights to one sect, or to im- 
pose disqualifications on another, is a deviation from 
correct theory of government, and is at variance with 
those principles publicly declared by all, or by most 
of the republican constitutions of America. That 
New- York did fall into this error, is evident, that she 
corrected the error the moment she became sensible 
of it, is in proof that the spirit of justice reigned in her 
councils ; and justifies the presumption, that inadver- 
tence, and not evil design, gave rise to the law of 
1801, which required that every person appointed to 
office whether civil or military, should, before entering 
upon the execution of the same, " renounce and ab- 
jure all allegiance and subjection to all and every king, 
prince, potentate and state, in all matters ecclesiasti- 
cal as well as civil." The new constitution provides 
that no other test than the following be required of 
the citizen, as a qualification for holding an office. u I 
do solemnly swear (or affirm as the case may be) that 
I will support the constitution of the United States, 
and the constitution of the State of New- York, and 
that 1 will faithfully discharge the duties of to 
the best of my ability." 

Republicans should reflect, that every act which 
confers exclusive political privileges on any one sect 
of christians, or abridges the privileges of another, 
partakes, so far as the law extends, of the persecutions 
which we condemn in the Europeans ; and although it 
touches not life or limb, although it uses not racks or 
torture, arid resorts not to am auto de fete, yet it im- 
poses an injury which may operate as a heavy penalty. 
It is inquisitorial and calculated to produce dislike 
and even hatred of one citizen a-amst the other. The 
enemies of the Catholic religion have fastened on the 
inquisition as a means of bringing the hatred of all 
other sects on the Catholic, the persecutions of 



142 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



Catholics in Britain, has brought the Protestant reli- 
gion into contempt there, and has caused numbers to 
forsake the religion altogether. Such will be the case 
in America, unless every remnant of persecution, un- 
less every species of religious inquisition be entirely 
laid aside by the civil authorities ; nor will this be suf- 
ficient unless parents will cease to instil religious an- 
tipathies into their children ; and public teachers be- 
came instructers of brotherly love, instead of poison- 
ing the infant mind with prejudices not easily eradi- 
cated when once they take root. 1 am not entering 
into any discussion of a theological nature, which the 
reader must have already observed is no part of my 
design. I am not seeking a preference for anyone 
religion, nor yet inviting the adoption of a general 
creed, nor do I seek to raise deism or infidelity on the 
ruins of revelation and religion, but 1 seek, as the 
common right of every citizen, that he be not ques- 
tioned in any shape by the civil authority, and that 
he suffer no injury through t\ie law of the land, on ac- 
count of his religious opinions. Persecution in the 
old world has been the prop of despotism : in the 
new world, it has disfigured liberty. Its adoption, in 
however mild a shape, is persecution still. Suffered 
to remain, it might grow into strength and be approx- 
imating to the height it attained in Europe. Religious 
persecution and sound liberty cannot reside together, 
one of them must overthrow the other. 

It is a pleasing reflection, that the tendency towards 
religious persecution which has been planted in this 
country by its former royal rulers, is withering under 
an order of things more consonant to republicanism, 
and that public opinion is fast approaching to the con- 
viction, that civil liberty must be but a name, unless 
connected with a perfect freedom of conscience on 
religious subjects. My object is to hasten the con- 
summation of so happy a result, and proud indeed 
would I be, could I be certain, that my humble efforts 
had any influence to remove from the land of freedom 



INQUISITION EXAMINED. 



every trait of ill-grounded prejudice. I sincerely 
wish to see the citizens, one and all, become as amia- 
ble as christians, as they are free as men. 

I have quoted frequently from the learned, liberal, 
and enlightened O'Leary ; I cannot close this work 
better or more suitably, than by giving a quotation 
which coming from such an authority, should of itself, 
put at rest the question, whether the inquisition be 
grounded on a fundamental tenet of the Catholic re- 
ligion. 

" Let legislators who were the first to invent the 
cruel method of punishing errors of the mind with the 
excruciating tortures of the body, and anticipating the 
rigour of eternal justice, answer for their own laws, I 
am of opinion that the true religion, propagated by 
the effusion of the blood of its martyrs, would still 
triumph without burning the flesh of heretics ; and the 
Protestant and Catholic legislators who have substitu- 
ted the blazing pile in the room of Phalaris's brazen 
bull, might have pointed out a more lenient punish- 
ment for victims, who, in their opinion, had no pros- 
pect during the interminable space of a boundless 
eternity, but that of passing from one fire into anoth- 
er." 



THE END. 




DELIVERED BEFORE 



THE HIBERNIAN SOCIETY 

OF 

ALEXANDRIA, D. C 7 

IN 

SAINT MARY'S CHURCH, 

ON 

SAINT PATRICK'S DAY, THE 17TH MARCH, 1825. 
BY THE 

REV. JOS EPH W. FAIRCLOL GH, A. M, 

(CHAPLAIN.) 

"Join with your piety, brotherly love, and with bro- 
therly love, charity " 

2 EPIS. PETER, 1 CHAP. V. 5, 7, 



"PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE SOCIETY. 



ALEXANDRIA: 

PRINTED BY HENRY PITTMAN. 




DELIVERED 



Bfcloire the YlibfcYman Society 

OF ALEXANDRIA. 



Join with your piety brotherly love, and with brotherly 
love, charity. II. Epis. Pet. ch. i. v. 5, 7. 

Though these words of the Holy Apostle may be ap- 
plied to Christians in general, I have adopted them as be- 
ing peculiarly applicable to our society in particular. 
True genuine piety will always produce brotherly love, 
and brotherly lovecannot exist in the heart without mani- 
festing itself in deeds of charity. The truly good man 
will always be a charitable man; he will put forth his 
exertions to promote as extensively as possible, the great 
cause of charity. The spirit of brotherly love, which 
is consummated by charity, has united us together that 
the sacred gifts of charity might be more widely, as well 
as more judiciously, diffused among our suffering breth- 
ren. Such being, as I trust and am willing to believe, 
the feelings and motives which actuate every member of 
our body, all will acknowledge the propriety of my text 
as applied to the Hibernian Society. 

We have assembled here, my brethren and Christian 
friends, to celebrate the festival of the great and glorious 
patron of Ireland, St. Patrick. It is a name which 
every honest every virtuous Irishman should hold dear 
in his remembrance — should warmly cherish in his heart* 
Not only because it is associated with his earliest re- 
collections, the innocent days of his childhood, but be- 
cause it is intimately connected with his nearest and 
dearest interests. His mind rests with melancholy 
pleasure upon the scenes of his earliest youth as they 
pqtss in rapid quick succession before his pained a ; nd 



4 



troubled fancy. When, unconscious of his own en- 
slaved state, and that of his degraded country, ignorant 
rhat even then he was dragging after him the chain of 
iiervitude, which became heavier at every move, another 
day of joy and gladness rose upon him with every 
morning's sun, and peace and delight and happiness- 
were wafted to him upon the wings of the evening 
zephyrs. But his short dream of happiness soon 
vanished — it fled like a shadow, like a phantom of the 
night from his busy enchanted imagination, and he 
started from his trance, and found himself in fetters. A 
host of mingled feelings, a promiscuous crowd of dor- 
mant ideas start into existence at the very sound of the 
name of St. Patrick. The joyous festive meetings on 
St. Patrick's day, over w hich guileless innocence presi- 
ded, when young and unsuspecting hearts as yet untain- 
ted by vice and corruption, as yet unhackneyed in the 
deceitful wiles of the world, mixed together in social 
glee and harmony; when ever} 7 sound spoke happiness, 
and every soul thrilled with pleasure, rush like a tor- 
rent upon his imagination, he loves to dwell upon the 
sweet idea, till it disappears from his fancy,and he is for- 
ced to heave a deep and heavy sigh of regret, that those 
happy days are past and gone, never, never more to 
return. Is it not then natural for an Irishman to cele- 
brate the festival of St. Patrick, which recalls to his 
memory the fond recollection of scenes long passed by* 
which tends to rouse up in his soul flelings of the most 
noble, the most generous, the most exalted nature to- 
wards his native, his much beloved country. How can 
he resist the impulse? The birth days of kings and, 
potentates are celebrated in their respective dominions r 
with all the empty pomp of parade and pageantry. 
Their cringing vassals fjllow in their train, bent be- 
neath the heavy yoke of slavery, and forced to give 
utterance to expressions of joy and hilarity, whilst grief 
and oppression prey upon their hearts. The birth days 
of heroes, whose great souls disdained to live the slaves 
of tyranny and despotism, and resolved to live subject 
only to the government of wise and equitable laws^ 
agreeably to the dictates of natural justice; who have 



nobly fought arid bled in their country's cause; who 
have wrenched her from the tyrant's grasp, and made 
her free, deserve, justly deserve, to be honored, to be 
celebrated by a grateful people. Ingratitude, my 
brethren, whether moral or political, is a great vice, and 
the characters of the perpetrators deserve to be branded 
with lasting infamy. To the shame of degraded human 
nature be it spoken, the annals of history are but too 
replete with instances of the foulest ingratitude in return 
for the most signal services. The discoverer of the 
Western World, the now free America, the asylum and 
the home of the exile and the stranger, was loaded with 
heavy irons, and in thai ignominious condition brought 
into the presence of the unprincipled avaricious despot* 
to whom he had volunteered his services, and whose 
treasures he had filled with the wealth of the new world. 
This circumstance alone has affixed a stigma to the 
name of Ferdinand, which no time will ever obliterate. 
Divine Providence is now exacting from Spain a just 
retribution for all her base ingratitudes, for all her sins 
committed against the sanctity of humanity; for all her 
atrocious bloody deeds of guilt and murder. But why 
should I refer to a period so far remote for instances of 
ingratitude? Is there no name nearer to our own times 
than the close of the fifteenth century, of an individual, 
who purchased, at the hazard of his life, his country's 
freedom; whose illustrious actions, whilst they shed a 
bright glory upon the page of history, serve also to ren- 
der more daring the dark blots of ingratitude, in the 
character of those for whom he procured their freedom? 
Is there no illustrious personage who ought not only to 
have lived for ever, but for ever to have been dearly 
cherished in the hearts of his countrymen, the memory 
of whom has not gradually, might it not be said., 
speedily, died away; whose birth day at present brings 
nothing to their minds, in the language of the poet — 

"To think it better than (he day before, 

Oi -any other in (he course of time, 

That dully took its turn and ,vas forgotten," 

/ 



6 



But time has proved, which is the best of all tests, thai: 
this reproach can never be coupled with the name of an 
Irishman. Fourteen hundred years has Ireland revered 
the name of Patrick. No matter into what corner of 
the globe an Irishman's hard fate may have cast him; 
no matter how far distant he may be from the green 
fields of his nativity, the home of his fathers, the memory 
of his patron Saint blooms in his heart as fresh and as 
green as the shamrock he wears in I is bosom. May the 
shamrock continue to be, as it was used by St. Patrick, 
the emblem of unity! May it always denote the union of 
Irish hearts. Let Irishmen be united in aiding and 
befriending one another throughout the world. Let 
them never forget that, though they may have branched 
fbrth into a thousand different directions over the sur- 
face of the earth, their common stock stands in Ireland> 
Jet not one limb be severed off from the main bodj T , but 
let every branch contribute to the health and beauty of 
ihe whole, and thus flourish together in all their pris- 
tine vigor, and perennial greenness. To the honor of 
Irishmen be it said, that this unanimity generally pre- 
vails. There is hardly a city or town of auy note in 
this widely extended republic, in which an Hibernian 
Society has not been organized for the relief of their 
suffering countrymen. And were I an Irishman, or the 
descendant of an Irishman, residing in a place where 
one of these societies was formed, I should feel ashamed 
of myself, I should feel myself degraded even in my own 
estimation, did not my name appear enrolled on the list 
of its members. Englishman that I am, I congratulate 
myself in being permitted to be a member of the society 
\n this city, and I feel proud at the honor which it has 
conferred upon me. 

But, my Christian brethren, there is another cir- 
cumstance which ought to be a still stronger inducement 
to every Irishman, to celebrate in a becoming manner 
the festival of St. Patrick. A circumstance with which 
ihe nearest and best interests of Ireland have, for centu- 
rjes upon centuries, been coupled; a circumstance of 
itself alone sufficient to sanctify, to canonize, in the 
^srima-tion erf eyenv good man the name of Patrick 1 ' 



Ireland, under Divine Providence, is indebted to the 
laborious exertions and holy zeal of St. Patrick for the 
blessings of Christianity. In proportion to the nature 
and extent of the favor conferred, should gratitude be 
manifested. As then the eternal bliss of heaven, which 
the belief and practice of the Christian religion will 
infallibly secure to us, surpasses, both in nature and 
extent, and in its ultimate effects, every temporal bene- 
fit, however great it may be supposed to be, so should 
our gratitude for this Divine favor, exceed that which 
we render for any earthly blesskig. It is not my in- 
tention at present, my brethren, to speak the praises of 
our patron saint; this I attempted only upon a former 
occasion ; for in truth his exalted merits soar far above 
the reach of any panegyric. The virtues of Christian 
Ireland, the "Island of Saints," as it has been emphati- 
cally and justly called, have, for fourteen centuries, pro- 
claimed his merits. Any feeble effort of mine is there- 
fore unnecessary ; I cannot raise him higher in the es- 
timation of a grateful people than in what he at present 
stands. But though his merits be not the theme of eu- 
logy on this festal day, there are events connected with 
it which will tend to fill the soul with sentiments of a 
much nobler, a much more exalted nature. The annual 
celebration of the Saint's festival, naturally as it were 
excites in the breasts of Irishmen feelings of love and 
gratitude towards that all-kind and beneficent Being 
who employed him as an instrument in his hands, to 
christianize heathen Ireland. It is an epoch sacred in 
her annals. View, my Christian friends, for a short 
moment only, the state of Ireland previous to the in- 
troduction of Christianity. Look to that dark and 
dismal period in Irish history, when sceptred barbarism 
sat enthroned in twenty rude unshapely palaces; when 
a multitude of ferocious tribes, headed by the furies 
witli their flaming brands, rushed forth at the savage 
yell of war, to deeds of barbaric cruelty, massacre and 
murder, till the torch became extinguished in the foe- 
man's blood. Behold the scenes of havoc and desola- 
tion which ensued, and you will mourn over the degra- 
dation of human nature. Contemplate your native 



s 



country enveloped in the thick darkness of superstition, 
which like that of Egypt could be felt : your forefathers 
prostrate in blind and stupid adoration at the foot of 
some misshapen idol, their hands streaming with the 
blood of their own children, whom they had inhumanly 
sacrificed to the demons of their idolatry. But let us 
turn away from this midnight state of things, it is too 
gloomy for the mind to rest on : turn away from this 
mournful, melancholy spectacle; from this total pros- 1 
tration of the noblest work of God, the human intellect, 
and cast your eyes upon the bright sun of religion rising 
upon the horison of Ireland, spreading around him his 
soft and genial rays. Follow him in his progress, and 
mark how the dark clouds of heathenish superstition 
vanish from before him as he rises in his splendour : 
the temples of the idols crumble into dust j the groves 
of the Druids wither at his approach, as he advances to 
his meridian glory, beaming down his bright illuminat- 
ing rays, over the whole surface of an hitherto benighted 
island. Instead of the black flag of superstition, the 
spotless triumphant banner of the cross, was seen waving 
in the firmament. As Dagon, the God of the Philis- 
tines, fell prostrate before the ark of the covenant, as 
the Oracle of Delphos was struck dumb when the world's 
Redeemer came, so did the pagan Gods of Ireland fall, 
at the approach of the crucified God of Christianity. 
Instead of the shocking, impious rites of idolatry, from 
which humanity recoils with horror, the true worship 
of the true God, the Omnipotent Creator of the uni- 
verse, was every where established, and his praises sung 
in Ireland's most distant corner. How different, my 
Christian friends, is this scene from that we lately view- 
ed ; how changed the face of Ireland. Nothing but 
the all-subduing influence of religion can ever effectually 
soften the hard features of barbarism, can ever human* 
ize the mind of man. Such have been its blessed effects 
upon the people of Ireland. What gratitude then is 
due to that primary source from whence these blessings 
flowed ? None of us can ever be sufficiently grateful to 
that kind and bountiful Being who has gratuitously 
bestowed upon us the blessings of revealed religion t 



9 



but we can at least, to the utmost of our power, endea- 
vor to manifest our gratitude. Let it never be said that 
ingratitude to God for his benefits, or ingratitude of any 
description whatever, ever tarnished the character of 
an Irishman. Let not the recording Angel ever have 
to register against him this foul crime in the awful book 
of judgment; and from the manner in which the festival 
of this day has been celebrated I hope he will not. The 
morn has not been ushered in by the loud pealings of 
artillery; not a gun been fired to announce the day of 
St. Patrick ; no unmeaning shew and parade has dis- 
tinguished it from any other; but it has been distin- 
guished by other far more appropriate demonstrations of 
sentiment and feeling suited much betterto the occasion* 
The son- of St. Patrick, for in the words of St. Paul,"m 
Christ Jesus has he begotten you through the gospel'" 
have repaired in solemn dignified silence to the temple 
of the most high, to pour forth on their bended knees 
before his holy altar, the overflowing fullness of their 
grateful hearts. To be present during the celebration 
of the holy sacrifice of the mass which has been offered 
up to Almighty God as a thanksgiving for the blessings 
of religion conferred upon their forefathers and trans- 
mitted to themselves. A sacrifice which was first offered 
up in Ireland by St. Patrick, to draw down the blessing 
of Heaven upon his mission. The sacrifice was ac- 
cepted; his prayer was heard, and his labours crowned 
with success. They have come hither to crave a bless- 
ing upon our institution, 4o entreat the God of unity 
and of charity to second their laudable endeavors in 
promoting Lis own holy cause, the cause of charity. 
How superior, how far superior h this, to the manner 
in which birth-days are generally solemnized. Instead 
of riot and wanton indulgence, we are employed in 
thanking God for his favours, of which this day re-* 
minds us. Let us continue to solemnize the feast of St. 
Patrick in this manner, and the God of St. Patrick^ 
who stood by him in all his trials, who gave a blessing 
to his every exertion, will continue to bless, to assist us e 
Our Society has been organized, as its name imports., 
fdr the relief of poor suffering emigrants from suffering 



10 



Ireland. Its object is noble and at once speaks the cha- 
racter of its framers, announces the generous disinteres- 
tedness which actuates its numerous members. That 
friendship is of a doubtful nature which has nothing more 
than words to recommend it; actions alone can prove it 
genuine- Whilst the smiles of prosperity beam upon us r 
gladdening our course on our voyage through life; whilst 
every thing around us breathes of comfort, peace and hap- 
piness ; whilst every breeze whispers new delight, brings 
iresh enjoyment, we art surrounded by a flattering host^ 
profusely prodigal in expressions of their esteem and re- 
gard and friendship for us. But when the furious gales 
of adversity assail us ? when the cold chilling blasts of 
poverty howl around our dwellings, in which a little 
time previous peace and happiness and plenty resi- 
ded, where are then our former professed friends ? All 
have disappeared; and our only companions are poverty 
and wretchedness. Alas, my Christian friends, it but 
too often happens that friendship's aid is most denied 
when wanted most! Comfort offered in the severe hour 
of trial, assistance granted in the pressing time of need, 
can alone prove friendship real. Such is the object of 
our Society, to speak the words of soft and gentle com- 
fort to the dejected poor man's heart, and to administer 
to his necessities. An object, upon which the God of 
all comfort, of love and charity, must from his high 
throne in heaven, surrounded by millions of angelic 
spirits breathing forth accents of the purest seraphic 
love, look down smilingly propitious. This divine be- 
ing, w 7 hose very essence is love, who ardently loves the 
noblest work of his right hand, man; who has exerted 
his Omnipotence to make him happy here and happy 
hereafter, has stamped upon his soul at his creation the 
image of himself. As Almighty God then is all kind- 
ness and goodness, as he causes creation to teem with 
the rich abundance of his bounties, for the benefit and 
comfort of man, he never could have designed him whom 
he has fashioned after his own likeness, to be a narrow, 
contracted, selfish being. Man was created a social be- 
ing, destined, according to the measure of the means with 
w hich his»£reator had blessed him, to aid and support 



his fellow creature man. To render the fulfilment of 
this sacred social duty not only easy but delightful to 
us,it has pleased the all wise creator*of us and all things, 
admirably to blend and harmonize together, in our very 
composition, feelings of a nature the most noble, the 
most exalted; of a texture the tenderest, the most ex- 
quisite. A man, whose soul is not yet hardened by 
avarice nor depraved by vice, cannot resist this divine 
impulse within him, his heart melts at the sight of human 
woe, and his hand is extended as it were by instinet to 
relieve the sufferer. But though a man with a well 
constructed heart can feel for all mankind, though he 
"rejoice with those that rejoice, and weep with those 
that weep," the afflictions of his own household, of those 
who are near and dear to him, distress him much more 
sensibly; and in granting immediate relief, the imperi- 
ous voice of nature calls loudly upon him to yield them 
the preference. Nature, combined with habit, has im- 
planted in all our breasts a cherished fondness for the 
land of our nativity. So many sweet endearing ideas, 
so many delightful associations fill the soul when it re- 
verts back to the earliest spot of its earthly existence, 
that it is next to an impossibility not to feel a venera* 
tion towards it. We know, my friends, that there are 
monsters in human shape, men they deserve not to be 
called, who, destitute of every feeling which dignifies 
and ennobles human nature, have devoted their little 
sordid minds to the gratification of selfish passion, have 
sacrificed their early friends, renounced their country, 
and denied their name. But whatever may be said of 
other countries, to the glory of Ireland, to the honor 
of Irishmen be it said, that this term of reproach, this 
stigma of character cannot be attached to tt»e name. 
The love of Ireland and of every thing connected with 
Ireland's best interest, is deeply engraven upon the 
fond, the doating heart of an Irishman, He loves his 
country with a peculiar characteristic ardor not to be 
found in the natives of other countries. Whether an 
exile upon the banks of the rapidly flowing Ister, whi- 
ther persecuting tyranny has driven him; or seated by 
the soft and smoothly flowing luxuriant Ganges; or 



12 



exposed to the tropical beams of a scorching African 

suii upon the sable Niger; or roaming disconsolate in 
the wild inhospitable forests of Amazonia; the tender 
emotions of his heart are borne away on the swift wings 
of fancy to that gem of the ocean, his own Emerald 
Isle, and he weeps over her whilst he mourns his owq 
unhappy lot. Like the captive Israelites upon the ri- 
vers of Babylon, "where they sat and wept when they 
remembered Zion" does he sit and weep when he thinks 
of Ireland. Her past glories flash upon his view; her 
golden days, the memory of which has been transmit- 
ted to him from his forefathers, rush upon his recollec- 
tion. He thinks of the times when Ireland was free; 
when she Was acknowledged to be the queen of western 
Europe, in science, in arts, and in literature; when 
every country paid homage to her genius; when she 
sent forth professors in every liberal art, to the differ- 
ent nations of Europe, to humanize and instruct their 
inhabitants. Whilst he in rapture views her in her ra- 
pid advances to perfection, suddenly her evil star ap- 
pears blighting with its baneful, deadly influence her 
best energies. By the evil star of Ireland which ap- 
pears to the warm imagination of the poor exile, is per- 
sonified, as you may have already anticipated, the in- 
vasion of England's king. From that disastrous period 
does Ireland date all her misfortunes. From that pe- 
riod has she been fettered with the clanking manacles 
of slavery. Bigotry and tyranny, two of the great 
enemies of the human race, have been leagued, have 
conspired together to extinguish every spark of native 
genius, to complete the oppression of this most favored 
island. But their combined efforts have been vain, have 
been futile. The fire of Irish genius could not be smo- 
thered, it burst irresistibly forth into a magnificent 
blaze of splendor, which, whilst it illumined, astonished 
the world. Where is the country which can boast of 
characters equal to what Ireland has produced during 
even her days of servitude, whilst the exertion of native 
intellect was by a bigotted government systematically 
opposed ? Ireland ranks foremost among the nations of 
the earth for her bards> her orators, and her statesmen. 



13 



"The most ardent imagination, the sublimes! flights of 
poetry characterized Ireland's ancient bards; for then 
free, then unfettered, they sat upon the mountain's top, 
breathing the pure air of liberty, tuning their harps to 
the enchanting song of freedom. But their song has 
ceased : the lamentation of the captive Israelites may 
very justly be applied to them. "On the willows in the 
midst thereof we hung up our harps. For there they that 
led us into captivity required of us the words of songs. 
And they that carried us away said: sing ye to us a hymn 
of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the song of 
the Lord in a strange land?" Ireland's harp should 
now only vibrate notes of the deepest woe ; the songs 
of her bards should be the songs of sorrow. The power 
of her orators' eloquence should only be exerted to de- 
scribe in language of fire her wrongs; and her states- 
man's wisdom, to redress them. 

It is truly afflicting to humanity to reflect upon the 
scenes of misery and distress with which the restrictive 
persecuting system followed by England, has covered 
the once fair face of Ireland. Ireland may be justly 
called the land of bondage, the land of slavery and 
persecution. Her people loaded with heavy faxes for 
the support of what they have just reason to call a cor- 
rupt administration, and in return for this support their 
civil rights denied them. The rapacious avarice of the 
underlings of power, the petty tyrants of the soil, grinds 
down the poor industrious peasant to the earth; and 
whilst he has hardly sufficient v\ herewith to support his 
poor family, the tithe proctor comes and seizes upon 
the rest. The cruel penal code obliges him to support 
the establishment of a church to which he does nt)t be- 
long, whilst his own ministers have to live upon casual 
chaiity. In this state of the vilest, most unprincipled, 
most barbarous oppression, were the poor man to utter 
a murmur of complaint, or incur even the suspicion of 
dissatisfaction, a band of the most infamous abandoned 
wretches, sanctioned, and hired, (as it has been averred) 
by government, rush into his poor cottage during 
the dark and solemn hours of night, and assassinate 
him without resistance, plunging indiscriminately their 



14 



murderous weapons into the hearts of his sweet little 
ones, as they lie reposed in the arms of sleep and inno- 
cence — and the morning's dawn finds his cottage a 
smoking ruin. Can it be wondered at that men should 
flee from such grinding oppression, such bloody tyran- 
ny, such murderous persecution as this? L believe, my 
Christian friends, that I have not exaggerated the pic- 
ture of the poor man's sufferings; I believe the descrip- 
tion to be literally true, and I appeal to those Irishmen 
who have been eye-witnesses to the oppression of their 
country for the truth of my statement. Let it not then 
be ever said in future, let not the insulting barbarous 
expression be used to an Irishman, "why did yoa not 
stay at home ?' ? Home, my friends, is dear, very dear 
to us all. The poor Irishman wishes not to leave his 
home: the very thought of being exiled from the spot 
which gave him birth, from the home which the pre- 
sence of his forefathers had sanctified, which recalls to 
his remembrance scenes upon which his fond heart loves 
to dwell, rends his inmost soul with anguish. His heart 
clings to his home — -he loves his country; but he has 
ties, he has affections of a much stronger nature ; he 
beholds the little darlings of his heart in a state of star- 
vation, holding forth to him their little innocent hands, 
the tears rolling down their pallid countenances, peti- 
tioning him for bread, and he has no bread to give them. 
Is there any language to express such a parent's feel- 
ings? Is it then a wonder that he leaves his paternal 
home and becomes the exile of necessity? Ytt when 
embarked with his poor family and bounding over the 
dark green waves of the ocean, he casts a "longitig, 
lingering look behind and as the shores of his native 
Isle recede from his view, in the inspired language of 
holy David he exclaims, " if ever I forget thee, thou land 
of my nativity, let my right hand be forgotten, let my 
tongve cleave to my jaws,ivhen I shall cease to remember 
thee, O Erin" Penny less and friendless, he lands his 
precious charge on the shores of free America, then 
clasping his hands together in holy gratitude to the 
Supreme Being who has preserved him, for a moment 
he feels supremely happy j for then, for the first time. 



lb 



does lie breathe the pure air of perfect freedom. Bui 
his children still cry for bread That Almighty Being 
who first inspired him, as he did Abraham, to leave his 
native land and his parental dwelling, who has con- 
ducted him in safety across the perilous ocean, to the 
promised land flowing with milk and honey, has pro- 
cured him a proper reception. He finds a body of his 
own countrymen linked together in the sweet bonds of 
charity, with open arms ready to receive him ; and the 
overflowing fulness of his heart bursts forth in streams 
of gratitude. Where is the Irishman who has either 
seen or been made acquainted with the sufferings of his 
countrymen, who would not clasp the exile to his bo- 
som, press him fondly to his heart, and relieve his ne- 
cessities? There cannot be one that would not. The 
warmth of a true Irish heart admits of no time for re- 
flection. He sees distress, he relieves it. But the gen- 
erous disinterested character of an Irishman can best 
be described by native genius, glowing with native feel- 
ing. One of the first of Ireland's orators says of his 
own countrymen, that " the hospitality of an Irishman 
is not the running account of posted and ledgered cour- 
tesies, as in other countries ; it springs like ell his quali- 
ties, his faults, his virtues — directly from his heart.' 5 
Ireland's hospitality is more simply, yet not less beauti- 
fully described by one of Ireland's sweetest poets. He 
seems, indeed, to have been describing himsell, for a 
better, warmer heart, one more alive to the distresses of 
humanity, never beat in the breast of human being : his 
beautifully simple words are, 

<4 Hei e to the houseless child of w ant, 

My door is opt n still, 
And though my portion is but scant, 

I yive it with g^d will." 

Let this be the motto of every Irishman, of every man 
belonging to our Society. Our individual means may 
be but small, but we can enhance the value of our little 
pittance by giving with it all our hearts. This will 
call down the blessing of the God of Charity upon it; 
stamp it with a value which will make it pass current in 
the treasury of heaven. One cent wrung from the mi- 
ser's grasp would contaminate our funds. Let the heart 



16 



and the hand be united. The gift is stript of all its 
Value when presented with reluctance; and the poor 
man who receives it, feels himself poorer than before. 
But thank God I have no apprehension whatever that 
this foul stain will ever mark the donations of this So- 
ciety. Men of the most humane and charitable and 
liberal dispositions are entrusted with the disposal of 
our charities. I feel conscious, and the thought com- 
forts me, that no poor worthy suffering emigrant, who 
may be cast upon our shores, will ever have in future 
to complain of a cold reception. Ii is a sweet thing, 
my friends, to afford the poor man relief, to make a 
fellow creature happy ; yet sweeter still to know, that 
the cause of all his sufferings and his poverty lias been 
removed. Soon, I firmly hope, that Ireland will be* 
come once more a free and a happy nation. There is 
at present every prospect. Her sons will not have to 
seek refuge in foreign countries; but every man may 
sit under his own vine in peace and plenty. Bigotry 
and tyranny are leaving the world together, and man, 
in all his native majesty, is asserting and vindicating his 
own unalienable rights, such as his creator bestowed 
upon him. 

I feel that I have trespassed too long upon your pa- 
tience, but I cannot conclude without expressing my 
heart-felt joy at the celebration of this festival. I see 
the most respectable characters before me of different 
denominations of Christians, nobly emulating each 
other, and uniting together in the holy cause of charity. 
This makes my heart bound with joy within me. May 
our union increase in strength and numbers. May God 
bless our every effort. May my text oe verified. May 
I say with confidence to you "Join with your piety broth- 
erly love, and with brotherly love charity" A blessing 
I pray God to bestow upon our Society, upon all who 
have heard < e, in the name of the Holy Trinity, Father, 
Son and Holy Ghost. Amen. 



THE END. 

MAY 251943 




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